T&T is a small is­land coun­try with lim­it­ed re­sources, eco­nom­i­cal­ly chal­lenged at this time, and al­though im­prov­ing it is op­er­at­ing at a deficit that de­mands fru­gal "tight­en­ing of the mon­ey belt." Notwith­stand­ing our mon­e­tary is­sues and oner­ous flood­ing prob­lems, our Prime Min­is­ter of­fers hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to our Cari­com neigh­bours. Be­cause our cit­i­zen­ry, our man­u­fac­tur­ers and ser­vice providers are al­so in need, the PM is du­ty bound to help our cit­i­zens first. Con­se­quent­ly, rather than com­mit all tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to as­sist­ing T&T, she for­mu­lat­ed a syn­er- gis­tic pol­i­cy to eq­ui­tably bal­ance her fidu­cia­ry du­ty to in­vest tax­pay­ers' mon­ey wise­ly, take care of our own peo­ple, and at the same time help our Caribbean neigh­bours.

With un­selfish hopes and re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance, the PM's pol­i­cy to of­fer as­sis­tance us­ing tax­pay­ers' mon­ey and pri­vate sec­tor util­i­ties strikes an eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble so­lu­tion to give hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to oth­ers and at the same time serve our peo­ple in im­prov­ing their lives.

I am dis­ap­point­ed in my Cari­com broth­ers, and in Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley par­tic­u­lar­ly, be­cause they drama­tise pol­i­tics with calami­ty, build­ing self­ish in­dig­na­tion to­wards our good peo­ple, and the peo­ple's gov­ern­ment, which on­ly wants to help our own cit­i­zens in­clu­sive of our Cari­com fam­i­lies.?I ac­cuse the (PNM) Op­po­si­tion of be­tray­ing its pa­tri­ot­ic du­ty to de­fend its own coun­try against ex­ter­nal trans­gres­sors who pro­pose to boy­cott T&T goods and ser­vices in their coun­try. Not once have I heard the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and PNM po­lit­i­cal leader, or any par­lia­men­tar­i­an in op­po­si­tion, de­nounce the boy­cott. De­fend your land be­fore any oth­ers, Row­ley. Shame on you and your op­po­si­tion col­leagues.

Pa­tri­ot­i­cal­ly, if my tax­es are spent in my coun­try to help my peo­ple and my Cari­com neigh­bours, rather than ex­pend­ed out­side on sup­plies from Chi­na, Rus­sia, and oth­er non-Cari­com en­ti­ties, it is un­equiv­o­cal ev­i­dence that T&T sup­ports and af­firms the Cari­com neighour­hood of fam­i­lies, and that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar earns the ho­n­our to rep­re­sent our coun­try as PM. Ul­ti­mate­ly, our gov­ern­ment is charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to serve the peo­ple of T&T, and I con­grat­u­late the PM's "coun­try first" oblig­a­tion, un­like her pre­de­ces­sor who favours in­ter­na­tion­al ag­gran­dis­e­ment in bil­lion-dol­lar op­u­lent sum­mits. For­tu­nate­ly, the PM's hu­man­i­tar­i­an pol­i­cy does not reck­less­ly aban­don the peo­ple she serves, while pro­vid­ing for peo­ple she aids. To those cyn­i­cal of the PM's pol­i­cy, I charge you with un­kind­ness to­wards the peo­ple of T&T for at­tempt­ing to de­prive us of our right to al­so im­prove our own lives from the aid (our mon­ey) our Gov­ern­ment ex­tends to oth­ers. We are equal­ly proud, equal­ly in need, and equal­ly de­serv­ing. We ful­ly sup­port our PM and her as­sis­tance to our Cari­com neigh­bours, and in rec­on­cil­i­a­tion lan- gauge I trust the de­trac­tors re­con­sid­er their protes­ta­tions against us, your friend­ly neigh­bour, your T&T coun­try­men. Cari­com broth­ers, help us to help you so we can help each oth­er, and we all will eat at the same ta­ble.

Bri­an Stone

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