Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Framed pho­tos of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were snapped up by sup­port­ers at the Mid-Cen­tre Mall, Ch­agua­nas, last night as the Peo­ple' Part­ner­ship cel­e­brat­ed its first year in of­fice. Thou­sands joined in the cel­e­bra­tions which saw all coali­tion par­ties re­new­ing their com­mit­ment to work un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar's stew­ard­ship. The few ven­dors who sold the glossy pho­tos of the PM did not have enough to sup­ply fans, many of whom waved light­ed flags and ban­ners as they danced to the mu­sic of Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon, Ben­jai and Roy Cape All Stars.

The cel­e­bra­tion start­ed prompt­ly at 7.30 pm. Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House Dr Roodal Mooni­lal took the stage along with Sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah to high­light the part­ner­ship's one year of achieve­ments. Mooni­lal said: "It was just one year ago that you and thou­sands of na­tion­als in T&T re­moved Man­ning, Kei­th Row­ley, Colm Im­bert and in­stalled our beloved Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar." He boast­ed about the 28-page re­port of the PP's ac­com­plish­ments over the past year.

He said: "We achieved in one year what the PNM could not achieve in nine years. We gave out lap­tops.

We start­ed build­ing the high­way from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin. We re­placed the Navet trunk line so that 300,000 more peo­ple will get wa­ter. "In one year we gave the po­lice their spe­cial al­lowance of $1,000. We iden­ti­fied lands to build the UWI South Cam­pus at Debe. We paving road in Pluck Road, Tul­sa Trace, Cen­tral Port-of-Spain and we sent bus­es to To­ba­go," Mooni­lal said. Youth speak­er Nicholas Mor­ris al­so boast­ed of Gov­ern­ment's achieve­ment of grant­i­ng ap­provals to the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T (COSTAATT), Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies and Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T to set up cam­pus­es in To­ba­go.

Mean­while, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, who has been moli­bil­is­ing sup­port for his par­ty, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), al­so re­newed his sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He al­so poked jabs at Patrick Man­ning, call­ing him the 12th em­per­or and king. He said: "Man­ning thought he would have been 12th king and monarch of T&T but cra­paud smoked his pipe that time. Roy­al­ty must have class. "The low­ly and hum­bled will be ex­alt­ed. We were drawn in­to the bat­tle on May 24 and we were led by a queen, our moth­er 24. "She had no pre­ten­tions of in­fal­li­bil­i­ty, nor did she con­sume her­self in self-right­eous­ness," Mc Leod said. He added: "Def­i­nite chal­lenges con­front us as we seek to bring about change, based on fair­ness, eq­ui­ty and so­cial jus­tice. "When we came in­to Gov­ern­ment we in­her­it­ed plans and pro­grammes which em­pha­sised glitzy Gov­ern­ment of­fices and five-star ho­tels with rapid­ly dwin­dling fi­nan­cial cri­sis, ex­ac­er­bat­ed by glob­al fi­nan­cial melt­down and in the face of lack of prop­er pri­ori­tis­ing in the last ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"We have been plagued with grow­ing un­em­ploy­ment and col­laps­ing so­cial ser­vices," McLeod said.

He not­ed Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to the youth and would work dili­gent­ly to bring about de­vel­op­ment to the coun­try. To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) po­lit­i­cal leader Ash­worth Jack said be­fore the Part­ner­ship came in­to Gov­ern­ment there were hard­ly any bus­es work­ing in To­ba­go.

Now, he boast­ed, there were more than 40 bus­es in To­ba­go.