Gail Alexan­der

A Tarou­ba fa­ther of two broke down in tears and sad­ly re­called a for­mer prime min­is­ter's warn­ing about the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. A west Trinidad res­i­dent, who re­signed from the COP, vowed nev­er to sup­port the par­ty–or the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship–again, say­ing the Cli­co is­sue could be the "death" of the PP Gov­ern­ment. And a UNC mem­ber cried shame on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an and warned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar against Dook­er­an. Yes­ter­day's Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group meet­ing at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, pro­duced a range of emo­tions from anx­ious pol­i­cy­hold­ers, some of whom frankly aired bit­ter feel­ings against the Gov­ern­ment and the COP el­e­ment which Dook­er­an heads. The au­di­ence, pro­fil­ing a va­ri­ety of glum faces, in­clud­ed many re­tirees, as well as younger peo­ple, for­mer Bar­barossa band­lead­ers Richard Af­fong and Pen­ny Prescod, band­leader Ian Mcken­zie, re­tired union leader Sam Ma­haraj and oth­ers.

Tarou­ba res­i­dent Pe­ter Hinds broke down in tears and had to take sev­er­al min­utes to com­pose him­self as he spoke of the two daugh­ters, ages 19 and 20, he had to sup­port. Hinds, a sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive, told re­porters he had in­vest­ed $60,000 in Cli­co poli­cies over ten years. "I see a lot of old­er peo­ple here when I look around, but Dook­er­an says it will take 20 years to pay this off–some peo­ple will be dead by then," he said. "We want we mon­ey now!" "Right now...!" came the im­me­di­ate re­ply from some mem­bers of the au­di­ence. Hinds said: "The Gov­ern­ment has Methanol Hold­ings and they have oth­er Cli­co com­pa­nies, so they have the mon­ey to pay." "Tell Dook­er­an and the min­is­ters I ent vote for all you and I ent sor­ry. I ent sor­ry I ent vote for all yuh! I ent sor­ry! "A for­mer prime min­is­ter had said 'you look for dat...take dat!'"

Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, Diego Mar­tin, res­i­dent, Phillip Ly­der, said he in­vest­ed his re­tire­ment mon­ey in Cli­co in Jan­u­ary 2009, along­side his wife's. Livid about Dook­er­an's rec­om­men­da­tion, Ly­der said: "What is wrong with Dook­er­an?! Has his brains gone through? I went to the COP's of­fice in Wood­brook and told them I can no longer sup­port the COP!" Ly­der said Dook­er­an's Cli­co plan could put the PP at risk of los­ing the next po­lit­i­cal round if the Gov­ern­ment went for­ward with his plan. "You can't do peo­ple this...What­ev­er they get now they look for it!" Ly­der said, adding that he had to pro­vide for his health. Warn­ing that if the PP kept go­ing on that route, the Gov­er­ment would be un­done, he said. Ly­der said he had sup­port­ed the PP and had looked for­ward to some­thing good from the new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"But now I don't want to see them! They were ask­ing me at Flag­ship House if I was com­ing to vote in the (re­cent) COP elec­tions and I told them I don't want to see Flag­ship House again!" Ly­der added. He told the Guardian af­ter that the re­moval of pub­lic ser­vants' in­cre­ments had helped bring down the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion in 1986 and the Pi­ar­co air­port project was al­so the "death" of the UNC. He said the last PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion was al­so brought down be­cause of Ude­cott. Ly­der warned that if the PP did not deal with the sit­u­a­tion prop­er­ly, the Cli­co is­sue would be the "death" of the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion. An­oth­er speak­er, Alvin Be­har­ry-Greaves said he had used his car to cam­paign for the UNC and PP. He ac­cused Dook­er­an of bring­ing shame on PP sup­port­ers. Sup­port­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he said Dook­er­an would "throw down" the PP.

"All you will not reach five years in of­fice, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la, be care­ful of Dook­er­an!" Greaves warned. "Some of us have no more hope in T&T. When we lose the in­ter­est on our mon­ey is time to die. That is what the Gov­ern­ment is telling us." "You are sham­ing down the na­tion and the Prime Min­is­ter–you and the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor should re­sign, Dook­er­an!" A mid­dle-age man in a green jer­sey lament­ed that he had in­vest­ed all his VSEP mon­ey from a TSTT job in Cli­co. He called for a 72-hour dead­line for the Gov­er­ment to give a de­ci­sion to in­vestors. An­oth­er man called for a dead­line of Oc­to­ber 31 for the Gov­ern­ment to de­cid­ed on a new so­lu­tion. The PP Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, came in for praise from pol­i­cy­hold­ers group com­mit­tee mem­bers Prem Be­har­ry and Pe­ter Per­me­ll. Be­har­ry, la­belling the Dook­er­an plan "un­ten­able," praised the Prime Min­is­ter for "squash­ing" that and ap­point­ing the Vas­ant Bharath team to "change course from this col­li­sion course of fight­ing this in the courts," he said. Both laud­ed team leader Vas­ant Bharath.