?Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar remains convinced that State resources are being used in an improper manner to facilitate the controversial erection of a church linked to Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Persad-Bissessar said documentation reflecting discrepancies in Cabinet's approval to grant 0.3 hectares of State land to the contentious church, after the cornerstone was laid, would be revealed during the Opposition United National Congress' third "Meet the Constituents Tour," tonight, in Diego Martin. "In the statement (Prime Minister Patrick Manning) made in Parliament, there were several inaccuracies made and someone has, in fact, put in my postbox a copy of the Cabinet note in relation to this matter, and I will be speaking more on it tomorrow (today).
"There was both a 2005 and a 2006 (Cabinet note related to the church in the Heights of Guanapo)," Persad-Bissessar said yesterday, after arriving at the 2010 Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) annual children's Phagwa celebrations at Tunapuna Hindu School. Persad-Bissessar was responding to conflicting statements by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, last Friday, that The Lighthouse of the Lord Jesus Christ obtained Cabinet approval in September, 2005, to construct its congregation on State lands in the Heights of Guanapo. Manning's statements contradicted one from the Prime Minister's Office, last week, which stated that the "requisite Cabinet approval" for the land came in 2006.
According to the cornerstone at The Lighthouse of the Lord Jesus Christ, the church's foundation stone was laid on December 30, 2005, by Rev Juliana Pe�a, reportedly Manning's spiritual adviser. She has been using her mother's maiden name and dropped her married name, Devonish. "It is clear that there has been State-intervention. It is clear that State resources are being used, and therefore a full explanation is required as necessary, once the State is involved," Persad-Bissessar said.(KM)