Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Au­dac­i­ty by Faris!

That's how Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has trashed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi's jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the prop­er­ty tax that it "takes cash to care."

But while the PNM Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing tax from the pub­lic, it is hir­ing a for­eign­er for $180,000 a month as Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um CEO, she al­so not­ed.

Speak­ing at the UNC's Mon­day Night Re­port in Rio Claro, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, "Let me tell you some­thing, my friends, car­ing isn't mea­sured by the amount of cash you de­mand from hard-work­ing cit­i­zens!"

The UNC's meet­ing was in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions mode with sup­port­ers wav­ing yel­low flags and speak­ers urg­ing the pub­lic to vote out the PNM in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

Fol­low­ing the sto­ry in last Sun­day's Guardian where Al-Rawi said it takes cash to care, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, "I stand be­fore you to chal­lenge the au­dac­i­ty of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter. Did you hear what he had the nerve to say? He claimed that it takes 'cash to care' as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for im­pos­ing the prop­er­ty tax! What Faris means is that it's your cash they're tak­ing–not his mil­lions from fam­i­ly rentals–your hard-earned cash in this dread­ed prop­er­ty tax.

"This elec­tion when they come to your gate for your vote, ask them where is the moral­i­ty when over 100,000 work­ers have lost their jobs since 2015, and they're of­fer­ing work­ers four per cent, but Row­ley hires a new for­eign­er as CEO at $180,000 per month. Make the rich rich­er, they don't care about you!"

Say­ing Al-Rawi al­so dared to boast about the av­er­age sum al­lo­cat­ed to re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed out the cuts to Ma­yaro and Princes Town cor­po­ra­tions in two years, "That ar­ti­cle where he says you get more, you hear lie ... !"

UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, right, sits with MPs Michelle Benjamin,centre, and Dr Rai Ragbir at the party's Monday Night Report in Rio Claro.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when the PNM comes to seek prop­er­ty tax to run lo­cal gov­ern­ment cit­i­zens should ask how the UNC gov­ern­ment lit and main­tained grounds, had garbage col­lect­ed, paved roads, built drains and cleaned wa­ter­cours­es through lo­cal gov­ern­ment with­out the prop­er­ty tax.

"We did it be­cause we grew the econ­o­my. We didn’t pay min­is­ters' fam­i­lies $250M in rent, they shrunk the econ­o­my by 20 per cent and are now over­tax­ing you to pay for their poor de­ci­sions.

"Their ral­ly­ing cry is ‘Vote PNM, and you’ll get lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.' You hear lie, that’s a big lie. Don't get chained up! One year lat­er the law is there and not a step im­ple­ment­ed by them, they’re fool­ing you!"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed the col­lapsed road in the Ma­yaro area.

Cit­ing T&T's is­sues, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said for elec­tions, "You have the op­por­tu­ni­ty–do them back! This LG elec­tions is about you stand­ing your ground against Row­ley and his gov­ern­ment that wast­ed $250M on rent for fam­i­ly, against the 250 Cab­i­net re­cusals, against them ... pay­ing over $1B to eat-a-food lawyers!"

She said the prop­er­ty tax would not go to cor­po­ra­tions since all such col­lec­tions go to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund and the Gov­ern­ment de­cides how much they re­lease to cor­po­ra­tions.

$3.4M for crime con­fer­ence but no re­sults–Mooni­lal

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal cit­ed a writ­ten re­ply from the Gov­ern­ment re­leased yes­ter­day re­gard­ing his ques­tion on the cost of the Cari­com crime con­fer­ence–$3.4 mil­lion. That in­clud­ed ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion ($225, 000), food and bev­er­age ($400,000), rental of lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles ($200,000), set sig­nage ($800,000), and pic­ture tak­ing ($200,000).

"But no re­sults, wast­ing tax­pay­ers' mon­ey!" he added.

Mooni­lal said there was "no damn lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form!" (Paus­ing to note TV Jaagri­ti banned Bar­ry Padarath for his lan­guage), Mooni­lal added that peo­ple had been hear­ing about re­form "since Kei­th Row­ley had hair on he head ... don’t take on this BS on LG re­form!”

Mooni­lal who not­ed the miss­ing Galil ri­fle can shoot 30 bul­lets in three sec­onds al­so said there was a re­cent home in­va­sion in his con­stituen­cy yet Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds flew to the US yes­ter­day. Mooni­lal urged sup­port­ers to unite and vote out the PNM.

MP Rush­ton Paray said, "Imag­ine a Galil ri­fle just up and walk out of the De­fence Force, one in three per­sons live be­low the pover­ty line, in­vestors are flee­ing T&T, the wealth gap has widened, let’s chase this PNM Gov­ern­ment straight in­to the ocean! One leader! One par­ty!"