Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate Leader Dr Amery Browne has con­demned the re­cent oc­cur­rence of a cut­lass-wield­ing man turn­ing up at Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo's Fyz­abad home. How­ev­er, Browne's al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment's pub­li­ca­tion of the iden­ti­ties of peo­ple who had Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) pass­es which has now put their se­cu­ri­ty at risk.

And Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called T&T's at­ten­tion to the "hound­ing down of se­nior state of­fi­cials across the state sec­tor by the cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion" and what he claims are "veiled threats" by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Browne and Gon­za­les spoke sep­a­rate­ly on the var­i­ous is­sues yes­ter­day.

Browne com­ment­ed af­ter the is­sue which arose at Tan­coo's home last Sat­ur­day and af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, at last Thurs­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, re­leased a list of 625 PBR pass­es, which she said were giv­en out like "cook­ies and Kiss Cakes." The pass­es will be re­called in Ju­ly. Per­sad-Bisses­sar named some peo­ple on the list. The list, which was re­leased to the me­dia, in­cludes cer­tain for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Min­is­ters and oth­er ex-politi­cians, beau­ty queens, busi­ness­peo­ple, sportsper­sons, con­trac­tors and so­ca artistes.

In the in­ci­dent af­fect­ing Tan­coo, it was re­port­ed that a man rid­ing a bi­cy­cle and wield­ing a cut­lass went to Tan­coo's home last Sat­ur­day, pur­port­ed­ly with a" mes­sage" for Tan­coo and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der to im­me­di­ate­ly deal with the spike in crime in Fyz­abad. The man al­leged­ly warned that bet­ter se­cu­ri­ty was need­ed. The is­sue was re­port­ed to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and Tan­coo has since im­ple­ment­ed ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at the home.

Browne said yes­ter­day, "The UNC Gov­ern­ment's re­cent pub­lic pub­li­ca­tion of the names and ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tion num­bers of cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go who were hold­ers of pass­es to use the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, was an ex­treme­ly poor and cal­lous de­ci­sion which puts the se­cu­ri­ty of these in­di­vid­u­als and their fam­i­lies at ad­di­tion­al di­rect risk.

"Such pub­li­ca­tion is of grave con­cern, as it makes it that much eas­i­er for some­one to track a po­ten­tial tar­get and even fol­low them to their homes."

Browne added, "I com­plete­ly con­demn the oc­cur­rence two days ago of a cut­lass-wield­ing man turn­ing up at the pri­vate home of a Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment; such in­ci­dents high­light the on­go­ing se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges that af­fect our en­tire so­ci­ety.

"By the same to­ken, the UNC Gov­ern­ment and all mem­bers of so­ci­ety should re­frain from pub­li­ca­tion of any ma­te­r­i­al that can so ob­vi­ous­ly com­pro­mise the se­cu­ri­ty of oth­ers and their fam­i­lies, whether they may be an artiste, a sports per­son, a cab­i­net min­is­ter, a pub­lic ser­vant, or a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go in any oth­er cat­e­go­ry."

Gon­za­les slams PM's veiled threat to sen­a­tors

Mean­while, Gon­za­les honed in on the al­le­ga­tion of pub­lic ser­vants be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­ment on sen­a­tors dur­ing last week's cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment.

"I just want to alert the coun­try to the hound­ing down of se­nior state of­fi­cials across the state sec­tor by this cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion and the veiled threats by the PM to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by Her Ex­cel­len­cy and the ob­scene hypocrisy in crit­i­cis­ing Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors as 'losers' when her (PM's) Sen­ate bench is packed with losers in this elec­tion, as well as per­sons who are moral­ly des­ti­tute," Gon­za­les said.

Apart from is­sues at WASA and oth­er en­ti­ties, Gon­za­les was ref­er­enc­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­ments in her ad­dress to the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day on In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors and oth­er com­ments about PNM sen­a­tors as "losers."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her com­ment on the sen­a­tors, had said that the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench of the last two par­lia­men­tary terms had been "the ab­solute worst in our his­to­ry." She urged the sev­en new mem­bers on the In­de­pen­dent bench "not to be mis­led and wrong­ly in­flu­enced by the in­deco­rous bi­as­es and be­hav­iour of the two re­turn­ing mem­bers ..."

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les added, "The Prime Min­is­ter reads from pre­pared speech­es with words of sweet noth­ing­ness to try to paint a pic­ture of a Gov­ern­ment that cares. But in the still of night or in open day­light, her 'deputy PM' bul­lies, in­sults and dis­re­spects se­nior of­fice­hold­ers with a view to force them out of of­fice so that the Gov­ern­ment can fill those po­si­tions with their hacks and sym­pa­this­ers who will ex­e­cute their sin­is­ter agen­da."