KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Fac­ing strong back­lash for crit­i­cis­ing West­moor­ings res­i­dents who called for road re­pairs be­cause the con­stituen­cy vot­ed for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has sought to soft­en his po­si­tion, say­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will take care of the com­mu­ni­ty.

In a video cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia over the week­end, Alexan­der crit­i­cised mem­bers of the West­moor­ings North Res­i­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion for com­plain­ing about pot­holes in the com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing that they had lived with the poor road con­di­tions for a decade un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter and Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He said res­i­dents ef­fec­tive­ly vot­ed for pot­holes when they sup­port­ed in­cum­bent MP Hans Des Vi­gnes in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

“They want to come on the What­sApp thread and talk about pot­holes and ask where is Mr Fix It. I am dri­ving through those same pot­holes, and I would not both­er Jear­lean John about those pot­holes be­cause you all live with those pot­holes and then vote for pot­holes, so you know what to do, take pot­holes,” Alexan­der said in the post.

While the com­ments drew some sup­port, the video sparked wide­spread crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia.

Calls to Alexan­der went unan­swered yes­ter­day, but in a sub­se­quent video, he ac­knowl­edged that his com­ments went vi­ral. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would en­sure West­moor­ings and all com­mu­ni­ties re­ceived at­ten­tion, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

Alexan­der point­ed to projects im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous tenure as prime min­is­ter, not­ing that re­sources were al­lo­cat­ed to La Puer­ta, which he de­scribed as a tra­di­tion­al­ly PNM-sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ty. He al­so said Rich­plain res­i­dents re­ceived pipeborne wa­ter for the first time in 62 years, and a by­pass was con­struct­ed at Four Roads, de­spite those ar­eas vot­ing against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

He con­trast­ed this with the PNM’s record, ac­cus­ing the par­ty of clos­ing off the Point Fortin high­way by con­struct­ing a wall at the round­about in Gand­hi Vil­lage, Debe, an area where sev­er­al peo­ple lat­er died in crash­es.

In a sep­a­rate so­cial me­dia post, Des Vi­gnes de­scribed Alexan­der as a “sim­ple­ton,” ar­gu­ing that his rea­son­ing re­flect­ed sim­plis­tic think­ing de­spite hold­ing min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice. He re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion that West­moor­ings North over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ed the PNM, point­ing to vot­ing da­ta from the elec­tion.

Des Vi­gnes said the PNM can­di­date ref­er­enced in Alexan­der’s video re­ceived few­er than a quar­ter of the votes cast in West­moor­ings North, with 180 votes com­pared to 202 for non-PNM can­di­dates. He ac­cused Alexan­der of mis­rep­re­sent­ing the con­stituen­cy and dis­parag­ing res­i­dents he once sought to rep­re­sent.

He al­so re­mind­ed Alexan­der of the oath to im­par­tial­ly dis­charge re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go sworn to up­on as­sum­ing of­fice, ques­tion­ing whether his com­ments re­flect­ed that com­mit­ment.

Among the crit­ics was for­mer Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith, who said the Christ­mas sea­son was a time for com­pas­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from those hold­ing pub­lic of­fice. He de­scribed Alexan­der’s re­marks as “cal­lous” and “di­vi­sive,” adding that lead­ers should strive to up­lift com­mu­ni­ties rather than de­mean them.

Grif­fith char­ac­terised Alexan­der as a “pub­lic ser­vant Scrooge” and said the com­ments ranked among the most dis­gust­ing, ir­re­spon­si­ble, and un­ac­cept­able state­ments ever made by a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. He al­so ac­cused Alexan­der of re­peat­ed­ly ig­nor­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s in­struc­tions to re­main with­in his min­is­te­r­i­al re­mit, cit­ing pre­vi­ous con­tro­ver­sial re­marks about the In­di­an gov­ern­ment and Venezuela.

Al­though Alexan­der had said he would re­main “in his zone” fol­low­ing a re­buke from the Prime Min­is­ter, Grif­fith said he again over­stepped his au­thor­i­ty by com­ment­ing on road re­pairs, which fall un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen.

“De­spite hav­ing ab­solute­ly no au­thor­i­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the na­tion’s road re­pairs, this min­is­ter yet again has jumped out of his zone to state on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment that be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty in that con­stituen­cy did not vote for the UNC, it is good for them that the roads are in such a state,” Grif­fith said.

He said the po­si­tion re­flect­ed vin­dic­tive­ness and ar­ro­gance, ar­gu­ing that Alexan­der failed to grasp the prin­ci­ple of pub­lic ser­vice for all cit­i­zens. Grif­fith said the com­ments al­so con­tra­dict­ed the UNC’s elec­tion slo­gan that “when the UNC wins, every­body wins.” He stressed that his crit­i­cism tar­get­ed Alexan­der, not the Gov­ern­ment, and warned that re­fus­ing to ad­dress pot­holes could re­sult in se­ri­ous or fa­tal ac­ci­dents.