Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing out the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment for stay­ing silent amid a con­tin­ued surge in vi­o­lent crime.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day evening, Beck­les urged sup­port­ers to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing across the coun­try.

“It is al­most as though we have not re­alised that crime has con­tin­ued to es­ca­late un­der this UNC gov­ern­ment,” Beck­les-Rob­sin­son said.

She point­ed to the re­cent wound­ing of five men near a con­struc­tion site in San­gre Grande, and the dis­cov­ery of Va­lene Vanes­sa Camp­bell’s body in a con­crete drain in En­ter­prise on Fri­day.

“Let us pay at­ten­tion. When the PNM was in of­fice. Any sin­gle thing that hap­pened about crime, every­thing is ‘the PNM, the PNM.’ What are you hear­ing about this es­ca­la­tion of crime un­der this UNC? Pay at­ten­tion, my peo­ple.”

The PNM leader con­demned the dis­missal of an al­leged 20,000 work­ers fol­low­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. She said many of those re­trenched were vic­timised for not sup­port­ing the rul­ing par­ty.

“That is not love. That is abuse.”

She said the PNM had se­cured some of the coun­try’s best at­tor­neys to as­sist re­trenched work­ers pro bono and warned them not to be mis­led about their le­gal stand­ing.

Mean­while, Beck­les ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy for award­ing In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go last week.

She ex­plained that in 2021, the In­di­an gov­ern­ment do­nat­ed 40,000 dos­es of COVID-19 vac­cines to T&T un­der the for­mer Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion. How­ev­er, she claimed Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not sup­port or ac­knowl­edge the con­tri­bu­tion at the time.

“One of the first things they did com­ing in­to of­fice was to send home Dr Paras­ram. They were very up­set that the PNM gave him the high­est award. I sat in Par­lia­ment and lis­tened to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at Pres­i­dent’s House say that one of the main rea­sons she gave the ho­n­ourable Mo­di the high­est or­der was be­cause of the vac­cines. No shame.”

Beck­les-Robin­son said it was iron­ic that the UNC Gov­ern­ment lat­er used the same Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre they pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cised as “un­fit” for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to host Mo­di. She said Gov­ern­ment must dis­close the cost to tax­pay­ers for Mo­di’s vis­it when Par­lia­ment re­opens.

She al­so re­mind­ed sup­port­ers that while in op­po­si­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned the sci­ence be­hind COVID-19 safe­ty mea­sures, even tak­ing the then-gov­ern­ment to court.