Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is set to kick off a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar cam­paign in what could be de­scribed as one of the largest elec­tion cam­paigns ever in the his­to­ry of T&T. The PNM is mak­ing a strong bid to re­turn to Gov­ern­ment. Top par­ty sources re­vealed to Sun­day Guardian that an es­ti­mat­ed bud­get of $2 to $5 mil­lion is be­ing con­sid­ered for each of the 41 con­stituen­cies. It all de­pends on the sta­tus of the seat–whether its mar­gin­al or not. The fig­ure to run the PNM's cam­paign is es­ti­mat­ed to cross $150 mil­lion. In 2002 when Franklin Khan brought home the Or­toire/Ma­yaro seat for the PNM, some $5 mil­lion was used to cam­paign. Al­so, the cam­paign fig­ure for the Pointe-a-Pierre seat in the last elec­tion ex­ceed­ed $2 mil­lion, par­ty sources re­vealed.

The sum, sources re­vealed, does not in­clude the $50,000 a can­di­date is en­ti­tled to un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the mon­ey, sources said, is al­lo­cat­ed to the pur­chase of T-shirts, rental of cars and pay­ment of staff. Sun­day Guardian has learnt that the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, which is held by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning for more than 30 years, is in a fi­nan­cial­ly sound po­si­tion as a num­ber of fund-rais­ers were held un­der his pa­tron­age last year. Sources re­vealed that ear­li­er this year Man­ning had dis­closed at a meet­ing of sup­port­ers in St Ann's that he had some $500,000 al­ready set aside for his cam­paign.

Among the ma­jor events held to raise funds for Man­ning were:

1. the In­de­pen­dence Din­ner and Dance at Petrotrin Staff Club;

2. PNM Car­ni­val Fete held at San Fer­nan­do Hill and

3. Chut­ney ex­trav­a­gan­za Desh Ki Awaz host­ed at San Fran­cique, along with oth­er fund-rais­ers.

On­ly yes­ter­day, the prime min­is­ter host­ed a golf char­i­ty event at his La Fan­tasie Road, St Ann's res­i­dence. A mem­ber of the par­ty's hi­er­ar­chy said: "We are well on our way. We start­ed since last year rais­ing funds for an elec­tion and the earn­ings of every event was set aside. We were told to pre­pare for an elec­tion; we had no idea it was go­ing to be a gen­er­al elec­tion. We are ready to hit the road and cam­paign." It was on­ly two weeks ago at the PNM Spe­cial Con­ven­tion held at Ch­aguara­mas, the D'Abadie/O'Meara ex­ec­u­tive, which is head­ed by chair­man Her­man Noel, held a cruise aboard the Trea­sure Queen to raise funds for the Cashew Tree Foun­da­tion. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira, the MP for that area, ben­e­fit­ed from that fund rais­er. As in­cum­bent MP Paula Gopee-Scoon was prepar­ing to face the screen­ing com­mit­tee at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, she too con­firmed that sev­er­al fund-rais­ers were on the way to boost her cam­paign.

Among them, Gopee-Scoon said, will be Taste of the Bor­ough which will take place on April 26. Var­i­ous lo­cal cui­sine will be served. How­ev­er, while par­ty groups are man­dat­ed to raise funds for their con­stituen­cy, ad­di­tion­al fund­ing is al­so giv­en to each con­stituen­cy to run their cam­paigns. "The PNM is an or­gan­i­sa­tion. If a par­ty group has one thou­sand mem­bers they are re­quired to pay $24 for the year. It is in times like these the mon­ey is utilised. The law states very clear­ly that a can­di­date's fund­ing can­not ex­ceed $50,000. When we talk cam­paign we are talk­ing mon­ey. "The cam­paign fund­ing may in­crease de­pend­ing on the ground work re­quired to bring home the seat. Quite frankly, $100,000 is no mon­ey so we raise fund­ing via fund-rais­ers and do­na­tions which are giv­en to the Non Gov­ern­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs)."