The Con­gress of the Peo­ple’s po­lit­i­cal leader said the par­ty has re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that “oth­er” po­lit­i­cal par­ties are fund­ing gangs in this coun­try.

At the COP’s na­tion­al coun­cil meet­ing on Sun­day, po­lit­i­cal leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she is al­so up­set by those who have been “spread­ing ru­mours” that the COP was join­ing forces with the UNC ahead of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment and gen­er­al elec­tions.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the COP was alarmed by claims re­gard­ing the award­ing of state con­tracts which is fund­ing gangs in this coun­try.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said if this a prac­tice tak­ing place, she wants Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to “put an im­me­di­ate stop to it.”

She added she al­so has in­for­ma­tion that “there are oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties get­ting in­volved in the fund­ing of gangs” and she called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate these claims and make it pub­lic so “cit­i­zens can know the truth.”

Mean­while, the po­lit­i­cal leader said the par­ty will not be part­ner­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or the Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) for the up­com­ing elec­tions, but she ad­mit­ted the par­ty has been hold­ing talks with “emerg­ing par­ties.”

She said, “let me state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly there is no truth in that state­ment. We are not to­geth­er with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress for the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.”

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the par­ty will not be join­ing forces with the PNM or PEP ei­ther.

She said in­stead the COP hs been hold­ing dis­cus­sions with small, emerg­ing par­ties.

“Those emerg­ing par­ties, we have been hav­ing dis­cus­sions about how to make changes for Trinidad and To­ba­go and for a bet­ter coun­try,” Seep­er­sad-Bachan said.

The po­lit­i­cal leader went a step fur­ther to warn per­sons from spread­ing fake news about the COP and its po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

“If I find out, that those peo­ple who con­tin­ue to mis­rep­re­sent this par­ty....once ev­i­dence if main­tained, we’re go­ing to re­veal who you are and we are go­ing to shame you from mis­rep­re­sent­ing this par­ty. This can­not con­tin­ue,” said Seep­er­sad-Bachan.

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple will be hold­ing a screen­ing for prospec­tive can­di­dates ahead of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 16th.