STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of cre­at­ing dis­trac­tions to mask weak lead­er­ship.

She was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the me­dia about the Prime Min­is­ter's an­nounce­ment of a "pro­tect­ed list" which pre­vents the TT Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion from cut­ting the ser­vice of se­lect PNM mem­bers. The list was re­vealed in Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly and in­clud­ed Cud­joe-Lewis and the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil.

Cud­joe-Lewis said the prime min­is­ter was try­ing to dis­tract the pop­u­la­tion from Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath's con­tro­ver­sial in­ter­ac­tion in Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly where he took a pho­to of a par­lia­men­tary staff, af­ter ac­cus­ing him of bias in the mut­ing of mi­cro­phones.

"That ‘jamish­ness’, I will not par­take in that ... I am not go­ing to be dis­tract­ed by the prime min­is­ter's fool­ery," Cud­joe-Lewis said at the PNM of­fice in Scar­bor­ough.

The for­mer sports min­is­ter said she has kept up to date with all her bills since be­com­ing an adult and not­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had post­ed his util­i­ty bill on­line show­ing he was not in ar­rears.

She claimed the UNC gov­ern­ment was po­lit­i­cal­ly vic­tim­is­ing peo­ple and said peo­ple in To­ba­go have been com­plain­ing of the same un­der the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty (TPP) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"You see the in­tim­i­da­tion and tac­tics that that young man had to un­der­go? That is what peo­ple are afraid of.

"I want to call Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar weak. That is weak lead­er­ship. When some­thing of that sort hap­pens in your gov­ern­ment, you are sup­posed to treat with the mat­ter."

She said many To­bag­o­ni­ans are afraid to speak up about al­leged wrong­do­ing, es­pe­cial­ly as the TPP con­trols all 15 seats in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.