RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith says he has proof that vot­ers in the mar­gin­al San Fer­nan­do West are be­ing bribed with cash and ap­pli­ances, as his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents at­tempt to sway votes ahead of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Speak­ing at an NTA meet­ing at Lord Street, San Fer­nan­do, on Wednes­day night, Grif­fith said a cer­tain po­lit­i­cal par­ty had been brib­ing con­stituents to stop them from cast­ing their bal­lots.

“This elec­tion is get­ting very in­ter­est­ing. In this same San Fer­nan­do West, a cer­tain po­lit­i­cal par­ty is pay­ing $350 to hun­dreds of per­sons in HDC to ap­peal to them not to come and vote. You are brib­ing per­sons not to vote and yet you feel you have the right and ethics to be in gov­ern­ment?” he said.

He added, “This same po­lit­i­cal par­ty is giv­ing away stoves and fridges in the hope you can bribe peo­ple to vote for you. In Tal­paro in the 2015 elec­tions, they gave away 600 re­frig­er­a­tors and still lost by 2,000 votes.”

He al­so ac­cused Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of steal­ing his ideas to in­clude in her man­i­festo. For the first time, Grif­fith read from emails be­tween him­self and Per­sad-Bisses­sar in which he spoke about the cre­ation of a Min­istry of De­fence and a Min­istry of Home Af­fairs.

He iden­ti­fied the $1 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for fam­i­lies of fall­en of­fi­cers and the cre­ation of a Min­istry of De­fence and Min­istry of Home Af­fairs as his ideas, not Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s.

Grif­fith ac­cused his op­po­nents of be­ing un­eth­i­cal in their cam­paign­ing, say­ing two of his can­di­dates had dropped out of the elec­toral race out of fear.

“We lost two can­di­dates, two per­sons were threat­ened with their jobs. They were told by fam­i­ly mem­bers and their em­ploy­ers that they can­not go up and show af­fil­i­a­tion to us be­cause of vic­tim­i­sa­tion from cer­tain po­lit­i­cal par­ties,” Grif­fith claimed.

He al­so ques­tioned where Per­sad-Bisses­sar would get the funds to ex­e­cute her poli­cies, as he con­demned the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for bur­den­ing the pop­u­la­tion with tax­es.

“When peo­ple speak about loy­al­ty and pa­tri­o­tism, I have done it. I know what it is to serve my coun­try. As Com­mis­sion­er, I had 43 death threats,” Grif­fith re­mind­ed his sup­port­ers.

Grif­fith said when school vi­o­lence be­came an is­sue un­der his tenure, he tar­get­ed it us­ing men­tor­ship.

He said he res­cued 12 kid­nap vic­tims and put an end to home in­va­sions, kid­nap­pings, and ex­tor­tions.

“Crim­i­nals knew we had a five-minute re­sponse time with Rapid Re­sponse pa­trols,” he added.

Mean­while, Point Fortin can­di­date Er­rol Fa­bi­en de­light­ed the crowd as he took to the podi­um with a mes­sage for youths.

“Mar­i­jua­na abuse is your en­e­my,” Fa­bi­en de­clared.

Fa­bi­en, a for­mer drug ad­dict, vowed to cre­ate cre­ative spaces in com­mu­ni­ties to ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go’s men­tal health cri­sis.

“We’re all try­ing to build a fu­ture for our­selves, right? But how can we do that when the sys­tem is against us, when jobs are scarce, and when find­ing an af­ford­able but com­fort­able place to live feels im­pos­si­ble?” Fa­bi­en said.

He added that men­tal health was a ma­jor con­cern.

“We’re wor­ried about the plan­et, wor­ried about our safe­ty, wor­ried about bank charges, wor­ried about our fam­i­lies, and about whether our voic­es even mat­ter.

“And you know what? They do. Our voic­es. Our col­lec­tive voic­es ab­solute­ly mat­ter.”

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Dr Kevin Sar­ran said now that the Drag­on gas deal with Venezuela had fall­en through, politi­cians from nei­ther the UNC and the PNM had giv­en no com­mit­ment to put back a cent in the Trea­sury.