?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)