Shas­tri Boodan

The UNC has giv­en way for the TOP to con­test the two seats in To­ba­go. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Jack Warn­er, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters met with TOP leader Ash­worth Jack and oth­er key TOP mem­bers at the Rovanell Re­sorts at Store Bay Lo­cal Road, Crown Point yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC would not be putting up any can­di­dates for the To­ba­go East and West seats. A fiery Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coali­tion would not take away or at­tempt to rule, dic­tate or take over the TOP but was work­ing on an arrange­ment for the bet­ter­ment of the peo­ple of To­ba­go that would see both par­ties main­tain their iden­ti­ty and in­tegri­ty.

She said the UNC would lend in­fra­struc­tur­al sup­port to the TOP. Ques­tioned by in­di­vid­u­als at the meet­ing on whether the UNC was pump­ing any mon­ey in­to the TOP's cam­paign, she de­clined an an­swer and asked them to find out who was fi­nanc­ing the PNM in To­ba­go. Per­sad-Bisses­sar even chal­lenged an in­di­vid­ual at the news con­fer­ence to do his own in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the UNC.

TOP on its own fund rais­ing dri­ve

Ash­worth Jack in­ter­ject­ed and said the TOP has been on a long term fund-rais­ing dri­ve that in­clud­ed its mem­bers mak­ing month­ly con­tri­bu­tions of $100 to­wards the par­ty. Per­sad Bisses­sar said the coali­tion was for the bet­ter­ment of the peo­ple of To­ba­go who has suf­fered equal­ly or worse un­der the PNM regime. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that un­der her lead­er­ship the THA Act would be ex­pand­ed to give more pow­er for the de­vel­op­ment of the sis­ter isle, lead­ing to fur­ther de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion. The Op­po­si­tion Leader said she was fear­ful the trea­sury may be emp­ty should the Op­po­si­tion take gov­ern­ment, but said that a gov­ern­ment led by her would tack­le crime, un­em­ploy­ment and the econ­o­my.