Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning launched the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's 2010 elec­tion man­i­festo yes­ter­day. He said it in­tend­ed to con­tain the par­ty's eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, in­clud­ing fur­ther in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment to en­sure the con­tin­ued sta­bil­i­ty and pro­gres­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The launch took place at a break­fast meet­ing at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain. Sev­er­al min­is­ters were on hand to elab­o­rate on as­pects of the doc­u­ment, ti­tled "Car­ing About You To­day and To­mor­row."

Man­ning poked fun at the UNC/COP Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, say­ing it had no plan for T&T ex­cept to rise. The 63-page man­i­festo list­ed many of the Gov­ern­ment's achieve­ment over the past nine years.

There were a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high num­ber of full page pic­tures of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, a new Deluxe Coach bus, Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion units at East Grove, Val­sayn, the Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, re­cent­ly ac­quired Fast Pa­trol Crafts and the Wa­ter Taxi Ser­vice be­tween Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do. Man­ning gave sta­tis­tics to show that de­spite the glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn T&T's econ­o­my was sound and in good shape. He said the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund stood at more than $19 bil­lion and for­eign fig­ures amount­ed to over $9 bil­lion. Man­ning re­peat­ed sev­er­al of the projects his Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to em­bark on over the next five years if it was re-elect­ed in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning launched the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's 2010 elec­tion man­i­festo yes­ter­day. He said it in­tend­ed to con­tain the par­ty's eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, in­clud­ing fur­ther in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment to en­sure the con­tin­ued sta­bil­i­ty and pro­gres­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The launch took place at a break­fast meet­ing at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain. Sev­er­al min­is­ters were on hand to elab­o­rate on as­pects of the doc­u­ment, ti­tled "Car­ing About You To­day and To­mor­row." Man­ning poked fun at the UNC/COP Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, say­ing it had no plan for T&T ex­cept to rise. The 63-page man­i­festo list­ed many of the Gov­ern­ment's achieve­ment over the past nine years.

There were a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high num­ber of full page pic­tures of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, a new Deluxe Coach bus, Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion units at East Grove, Val­sayn, the Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, re­cent­ly ac­quired Fast Pa­trol Crafts and the Wa­ter Taxi Ser­vice be­tween Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do. Man­ning gave sta­tis­tics to show that de­spite the glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn T&T's econ­o­my was sound and in good shape. He said the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund stood at more than $19 bil­lion and for­eign fig­ures amount­ed to over $9 bil­lion. Man­ning re­peat­ed sev­er­al of the projects his Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to em­bark on over the next five years if it was re-elect­ed in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Among the pri­or­i­ties of the Gov­ern­ment for the next five years were:

�2 The re­form of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment sec­tor;

�2 the con­tin­ued en­hance­ment and ex­pan­sion of the road net­work;

�2 im­proved trans­porta­tion sys­tems;

�2 in­creased sub­si­dies and trans­fers to the el­der­ly and dis­ad­van­taged;

�2 im­proved wa­ter pro­duc­tion and de­liv­ery;

�2 a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in crime, caused by vir­tu­al elim­i­na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go as a trans-ship­ment point for il­le­gal drugs, through ef­fec­tive de­ploy­ment of our new mil­i­tary as­sets;

�2 im­proved and trans­par­ent rev­enue col­lec­tion; and,

�2 an im­proved, ef­fec­tive and eq­ui­table jus­tice sys­tem

Man­ning said T&T al­ways moved for­ward un­der PNM Gov­ern­ments.

"We are now at a point where our na­tion un­der our gov­er­nance is mak­ing that gi­ant step of en­dur­ing sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty," he said. He said those were not just an idle boast. "We have the achieve­ments to show for it. We have the plans to take us there. It is all re­vealed in this doc­u­ment we present to­day," Man­ning added. Ques­tioned lat­er, PNM chair­man and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Con­rad Enill said the man­i­festo was not about new ini­tia­tives but rather of im­prov­ing on ex­ist­ing pro­grammes.