Sascha Wil­son

Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get thanked Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for ac­cept­ing the trade union move­ment's rec­om­men­da­tion for a foren­sic au­dit in­to State-owned Petrotrin. Ro­get ex­pressed his grat­i­tude as he mount­ed Per­sad-Biss­esar's-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship po­lit­i­cal plat­form at Mar­ket Square, Point Fortin, on Thurs­day night. Ro­get, who ap­peared on the plat­form for the first time, said, "I want to thank my sis­ter Kam­la for ac­cept­ing the rec­om­men­da­tion of the trade union move­ment and the work­ers agen­da. It is the rec­om­men­da­tion to have a foren­sic au­dit in­to the Petrotrin Trin­mar op­er­a­tions of T&T. "Once that is done the coun­try will see who stole from you and they must face jail," he said.

He ques­tioned why af­ter two and half years Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning called a snap elec­tion and why he post­poned lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions four times. "But in­stead, we end up at the cross-roads where we are to­day hav­ing to make a de­ci­sion in what is now a gen­er­al elec­tion. "You see it is the strat­e­gy of Mr Man­ning and the PNM be­cause they are bank­rupt of ideas to run the coun­try and they are bank­rupt of ideas to come to you so it is their strat­e­gy to make con­fu­sion and bac­cha­nal in this elec­tion and to date Mr Man­ning has not an­swered the ques­tion to the pop­u­la­tion hon­est­ly as to why it is we are go­ing back to the polls." In or­der for peo­ple to sur­vive, they must have a de­cent stan­dard of liv­ing and a good sys­tem of gov­er­nance, he said, "The PNM have to die and bury," he said. COP po­lit­i­cal leader Win­ston Dook­er­an hailed Ro­get's ap­pear­ance on the plat­form as a "his­tor­i­cal pres­ence."