Kevon Felmine

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh yes­ter­day cau­tioned Ch­agua­nas West con­stituents against vot­ing for his for­mer col­league Jack Warn­er, say­ing they should vote for UNC can­di­date Khadi­jah Ameen in the Ju­ly 29 by-elec­tion in or­der to get con­tin­ued sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment.Speak­ing at his Princes Town con­stituen­cy of­fice, he said al­though Warn­er, the for­mer MP and now In­de­pen­dent Labour Par­ty (ILP) leader, had done a lot for the con­stituen­cy, it was done through the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment.

He said Warn­er would not be able to pro­duce the same kind of re­sults if he were an op­po­si­tion MP."On the walk­a­bout that we're do­ing, we are get­ting that vibes. Yes, they (con­stituents) had a con­cern and they felt Mr Warn­er did a lot, but he could have on­ly done it as a mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment," Baksh said."I can't see him do­ing it in op­po­si­tion. And there­fore we are say­ing peo­ple should sup­port Khadi­jah Ameen so that they will re­main in Gov­ern­ment and con­tin­ue to re­ceive what they have re­ceived in the past."

Asked if Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment con­stituen­cies did not get much sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment, Baksh said: "I can tell you that when I was in op­po­si­tion, it did not flow as good. You have to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion."Iron­i­cal­ly, Baksh's com­ment dif­fered from what Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er min­is­ters have been telling sup­port­ers dur­ing can­vass­ing in Ch­agua­nas.

Dur­ing the UNC's Mon­day Night Fo­rum, the PM said Warn­er had been giv­en $232 mil­lion un­der the PURE pro­gramme for in­fra­struc­ture works alone for the con­stituen­cy. How­ev­er, she lament­ed that roads and drains in Ch­agua­nas West re­mained in a di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion.

And yes­ter­day, Works and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan claimed Warn­er sought to help more than 300 peo­ple from PNM-con­trolled ar­eas get Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) hous­es, but on­ly got 21 for fam­i­lies from Ch­agua­nas West."This is the same man who is talk­ing about prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion," Ram­bachan said, adding Ch­agua­nas West had been ne­glect­ed un­der Warn­er.

Yes­ter­day, Baksh said the Gov­ern­ment de­liv­ered work faster in gov­ern­ment MPs' con­stituen­cies, as min­is­ters tend­ed to barter the ser­vices of their min­istries.Asked if the PNM or ILP won the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion whether res­i­dents would get less, Baksh said, "Well, they have to make strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion and if they fail to do that, they would not get it.

"Get some­body with­in the Gov­ern­ment. It makes it eas­i­er when you are part of the Part­ner­ship and we will be able to de­liv­er fast be­cause some­times you talk to your col­leagues and if you're in a min­istry, you of­fer some­thing and they give you some­thing and that sort of thing."He said al­though it was not a reg­u­lar prac­tice, it hap­pened es­pe­cial­ly when some­thing was ur­gent­ly need­ed.

He added that al­though Warn­er had good sup­port, the UNC was gain­ing ground on the cam­paign trail, as peo­ple were get­ting a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the par­ty's poli­cies and were now get­ting on board with it."I've been walk­ing on the ground my­self with oth­er mem­bers of the Part­ner­ship and I think we are gain­ing ground every day that we walk," Baksh said."We meet peo­ple–yes, they have cer­tain con­cerns, but af­ter you have lit­tle dis­cus­sions with them they feel very pos­i­tive about it."

"They un­der­stand what we are say­ing; that you are in gov­ern­ment and you want to re­main in gov­ern­ment, and you have to sup­port some­body who is like­ly to be with­in the Gov­ern­ment."This is the pos­i­tive side of this, and they are un­der­stand­ing that, and they are giv­ing their sup­port."