Gail Alexan­der

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry must im­me­di­ate­ly launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of racism at the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day. "Should those al­le­ga­tion be true that is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able and will not be tol­er­at­ed," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added. She com­ment­ed briefly on the is­sue to the me­dia fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's launch of the "Colour Me Or­ange" project at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann's. The Op­po­si­tion PNM has called for in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the is­sue - and Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj's part in the sit­u­a­tion - fol­low­ing claims the prin­ci­pal of the school, Si­ta Ga­jad­hars­ingh Nan­ga, was barred from the school re­cent­ly.

In Par­lia­ment last week, the PNM pro­duced a let­ter to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion from Nan­ga, list­ing her rea­sons for a re­quest for trans­fer and al­leg­ing that SDMS head, Sat Ma­haraj, in­struct­ed her to bar black chil­dren from the school. Ma­haraj, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, which runs the school, sub­se­quent­ly de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tions lev­elled by Nan­ga. Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry should to do an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. She added: "We'll see what they (min­istry) have to say but should those al­le­ga­tions be true, it is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able and will not be tol­er­at­ed. There should be no dis­crim­i­na­tion any­where in this coun­try."

On oth­er as­pects con­cern­ing Ma­haraj and is­sues at the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AATT), Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, she had not spo­ken to Ma­haraj (De­vant), but she would "try to find out what's hap­pen­ing there." Asked how she felt about the var­i­ous is­sues aris­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "That's life..." She al­so re­it­er­at­ed com­ments re­gard­ing de­trac­tors of Gov­ern­ment's $300 mil­lion pro­gramme for 20,000 jobs. PNM MPs had said the ini­tia­tive was in­sult­ing and tan­ta­mout to a hand­out.