Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ad­vised Cari­com lead­ers not to at­tend an "un­sched­uled ex­tra-or­di­nary" Cari­com Sum­mit which she said Gov­ern­ment wants to host in T&T with­in the next few weeks. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she un­der­stood T&T un­der­took to car­ry the fi­nan­cial bur­den of all costs of bring­ing Cari­com lead­ers here for the sum­mit, in­clu­sive of air­fare and ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Call­ing for cit­i­zens to be told of the costs, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was at­tempt­ing to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion from con­tro­ver­sial is­sues fac­ing Gov­ern­ment such as Ude­cott and the Gua­napo church. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T's Op­po­si­tion was call­ing on re­gion­al lead­ers to refuse par­tic­i­pa­tion in this sham. She added: "It is a fee­ble at­tempt by Mr Man­ning to move the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion away from cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions and in­ep­ti­tude of his ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"We wish to ad­vise ho­n­ourable heads of Cari­com that the peo­ple of T&T will view their par­tic­i­pa­tion in this shame­ful ex­er­cise at the ex­pense of tax­pay­ers' dol­lars here as a con­tri­bu­tion to Man­ning's squan­der­ing of our pre­cious re­sources, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when our na­tion is reel­ing un­der the pres­sure of so many ur­gent so­cial needs."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "Should the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion pro­ceed with this cir­cus of ex­trav­a­gan­za at the peo­ple's ex­pense, we pro­pose to alert all po­lit­i­cal groups, civic or­gan­i­sa­tions and spe­cial in­ter­est groups to join in protest against the host­ing of this waste­ful ex­pres­sion of ar­ro­gance and con­tempt for the peo­ple. (GA)