Gail Alexan­der

?While sup­port­ing the ap­point­ment of Christo­pher Joe­field to the UNC's Sen­ate team, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­fused to be drawn in­to a fight over the re­moval of for­mer Sen­a­tor Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was com­ment­ing on Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day's re­moval of Ou­dit from the Sen­ate. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­scrib­ing Joe­field's ap­point­ment as "tem­po­rary" said: "I en­dorse and sup­port the ap­point­ment of tem­po­rary sen­a­tor, Christo­pher Joe­field... In the con­text of the TTRA (Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty) bill to be de­bat­ed, the PSA needs that voice in the Sen­ate in de­fence of the thou­sands of work­ers who will lose their jobs. The UNC stands stout­ly be­side the PSA." On the man­ner in which the sen­a­tor­ship was con­duct­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I will not al­low the im­por­tance of the need for such an ap­point­ment to be dis­tract­ed by po­lit­i­cal me­an­der­ings and machi­na­tions.

"Suf­fice to say, Sen­a­tor Ou­dit has served our par­ty and coun­try well and that her im­me­di­ate re­vo­ca­tion rais­es more ques­tions than it pro­vides an­swers," she said. "The fo­cus must re­main the plight of the PSA work­ers, so let us not al­low any pol­i­tick­ing to cre­ate dis­trac­tions to this sin­gu­lar pur­pose. "Those work­ers who to­day wor­ry about be­ing put on the bread­line to­mor­row are dis­in­ter­est­ed in any in­ter­nal par­ty pol­i­tics and that's the way it should be. "As a par­ty, we are at one with what must be done to en­sure that not a sin­gle job is lost. That is our fight. Any in­ter­nal is­sues can and will be ad­dressed at some oth­er point." How­ev­er, UNC chief whip Jack Warn­er claimed: "Whom the Gods wish to de­stroy, they first make mad and be­ing 'mad' is the stage where Bas has now reached."

(GA)