Resh­ma Ra­goonath

PNM par­ty chair­man Con­rad Enill has stout­ly re­fut­ed news­pa­per re­ports that he was re­ject­ed as a can­di­date for the St Ann's East con­stituen­cy. Ad­dress­ing a fren­zied crowd of sup­port­ers at Pa­lo Seco Junc­tion, on Fri­day night, the En­er­gy Min­is­ter said he was nev­er in the run­ning for any con­stituen­cy in the lead up to the May 24 polls. "I am the cam­paign man­ag­er (for the PNM) and I have a cam­paign to run," he de­clared. Ac­cus­ing the me­dia of be­ing used to push a po­lit­i­cal agen­da, Enill warned par­ty faith­ful to be wary of what they read in the news­pa­pers.

"The me­dia is cre­at­ing for us a sit­u­a­tion that you need to be care­ful about. I say this to you be­cause we have an elec­tion cam­paign. Those who are op­posed to us, in try­ing to win this elec­tion, if they can, (are) us­ing the me­dia and a word to the wise is suf­fi­cient and we are wise," Enill said. "I (want you) to un­der­stand if you hear it here be­lieve it, if they tell you there check it," he said. Enill said the PNM was work­ing for the peo­ple and pro­vid­ing them with the tools to take the so­ci­ety for­ward.

"Free ed­u­ca­tion is a tool. To eman­ci­pate you must ed­u­cate. We are chang­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go for you... stay strong. Our first pri­or­i­ty is ed­u­ca­tion," Enill de­clared. Con­tin­u­ing in this sphere, the PNM's can­di­date for La Brea Fitzger­ald Jef­frey, said 2010 will see the start of con­struc­tion of a Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go cam­pus in Point Fortin.