OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A noisy protest, com­plete with props and the­atrics, oc­curred out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, just mo­ments be­fore Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert pre­sent­ed the 2024 Bud­get.

The protest was or­gan­ised by Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ers, who stood just op­po­site the Red House, out­side Wood­ford Square, de­mand­ing the res­ig­na­tion of the Gov­ern­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The protest be­gan short­ly af­ter mid­day and saw the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of MPs, may­ors, chair­men and coun­cil­lors from var­i­ous re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

Pro­test­ers en­sured their feel­ings about Gov­ern­ment MPs and min­is­ters were heard, as they di­rect­ed strong state­ments to­wards them as they en­tered the Par­lia­ment. Some in­clud­ing MP for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro Fos­ter Cum­mings were jeered, with loud boos be­ing heard.

How­ev­er, the pri­ma­ry mode of ex­pres­sion for most pro­test­ers was the use of props, which vivid­ly il­lus­trat­ed the dai­ly chal­lenges faced by cit­i­zens, rang­ing from crime and vi­o­lence to the ab­sence of wa­ter in house­holds.

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo joined with pro­test­ers to an­nounce the death of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, com­plete with un­der­tak­ers re­mov­ing the corpse from the square to the street.

One pro­test­er said they want­ed to draw the Gov­ern­ment’s at­ten­tion to the se­vere hard­ships be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by cit­i­zens dai­ly.

But amid the jeers and shout­ing, the crowd erupt­ed with joy as Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived. The en­tire crowd chant­ed, “We want Kam­la, we want Kam­la!”

A blush­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had great ex­pec­ta­tions.

“I look for­ward to see an in­crease to the min­i­mum wage but we will wait pa­tient­ly to see how much that would be. But we will talk about all these things af­ter the bud­get is read. I have good ex­pec­ta­tions but giv­en the min­is­ter’s style, he re­peats the same thing every year and the promis­es are not kept by the Gov­ern­ment from the 2022 to 2023 re­ports that hap­pened in the last bud­get and how many of those promis­es have ac­tu­al­ly been kept. I hope he up­dates us and give us a re­view as we go for­ward,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader added that the UNC’s pre-bud­get con­sul­ta­tion al­lowed her par­ty to able to see first-hand the cries of cit­i­zens.

“What I can tell you the num­ber one is­sue that we saw every­where that we went was crime, and every­where we went the next is­sue was wa­ter. That was an­oth­er ma­jor is­sue along with in­fra­struc­ture ... and the next is­sue is the lack of util­i­ties and un­em­ploy­ment along with ma­jor de­fi­cien­cies in ma­jor sec­tors in T&T, and I trust that the coun­try can get some re­lief,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.