Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

As the dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion for the UNC's In­ter­nal elec­tions ex­pired, Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj ex­pressed dis­be­lief that sup­port­ers of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting reg­is­tra­tion forms. Speak­ing to re­porters at Stone Road, Tabaquite where Ma­haraj fixed a road for his con­stituents, he said: "Kam­la is not ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any dif­fi­cul­ties. Jack Warn­er and Kam­la work­ers yes­ter­day got about 10,000 forms on her be­half." Say­ing that he on­ly got 200 forms, Ma­haraj added, "I said in the past that there is a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date who has been able to have forms and get the list first be­cause she was very in­volved in the elec­tion ma­chin­ery process. I had ac­tivists who saw them bring in the forms." He added, "One of Warn­er's of­fi­cials ad­mit­ted that they sent in 15,000 forms in Rien­zi, Kam­la and Warn­er don't have dif­fi­cul­ties. The on­ly peo­ple hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty is Pan­day and my­self."

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj said he was un­de­terred by the al­leged dis­crep­an­cy. "Let them get the forms and make the mem­ber­ship, and the votes will be mine. Kam­la and Car­los John did this in 2001. Let them get more forms and fill out names. They think they are work­ing against me but they are work­ing for me. They can get peo­ple reg­is­tered but peo­ple will vote with a con­science and the votes will be mine," Ma­haraj said. He al­so said that sev­er­al peo­ple at Rien­zi were sent home or sent on leave, be­cause of the can­di­date's close li­aisons. Mean­while on the is­sue of the road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, Ma­haraj said he spent $300,000 to com­plete the project. Ma­te­ri­als were do­nat­ed by lo­cal quar­ry op­er­a­tors, who had al­so con­tributed to fix­ing the Es­mer­al­da Road in Williamsville. Ma­haraj told re­porters that he spent $50,000 from his own monies on the project.

He vowed that his con­stituents would not pay prop­er­ty tax­es as Gov­ern­ment was deny­ing them their rights to have prop­er roads and a reg­u­lar wa­ter sup­ply. "I am fi­nanc­ing this projects with as­sis­tance from the cor­po­rate sec­tor to im­prove the lives of our peo­ple. Gov­ern­ment can­not ask us to pay prop­er­ty tax when it not pro­vid­ing ser­vices. We are not go­ing to pay prop­er­ty tax if the Gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to give us a sup­ply of drink­ing wa­ter and prop­er roads," Ma­haraj said. He said the re­cent re­ports that Calder Hart was giv­en a raise in salary was ev­i­dence of the bla­tant dis­re­spect the PNM showed for the peo­ple of T&T. Mean­while, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters yes­ter­day that the is­sue of the reg­is­tra­tion should be di­rect­ed to the Elec­tions Com­mit­tee at Rien­zi Com­plex. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her goal was to en­gage in trans­for­ma­tion of the UNC to make it stronger to beat the PNM.