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Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Deyalsingh warns of IMF Part 2 under the UNC

by

27 days ago
20250410
Aranguez/St Joseph candidate Terrence Deyalsingh waves to supporters from the podium at a campaign meeting in the constituency on Tuesday.

Aranguez/St Joseph candidate Terrence Deyalsingh waves to supporters from the podium at a campaign meeting in the constituency on Tuesday.

COURTESY: PNM

Se­nior Poit­i­cal Re­porter

There will be an “IMF Part 2” un­der a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date Ter­rence Deyals­ingh warned on Tues­day night.

In his ad­dress at a cam­paign meet­ing in the con­stituen­cy, Deyals­ingh said the last op­po­si­tion par­ty that bashed the PNM and promised vot­ers the “earth, moon and stars” was the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), which lat­er re­sort­ed to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) with poli­cies that cut pub­lic ser­vants’ salaries and al­lowances.

Deyals­ingh al­so point­ed out that one-time NAR leader Car­son Charles is now the ad­vis­er to UNC’s Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date De­vesh Ma­haraj. He said there are two paths in the elec­tion and one was the UNC, whose cam­paign has been promis­ing to “do this and that.”

“And you know why Kam­la nev­er tells you how is she go­ing to pay the $20 bil­lion in promis­es that she’s mak­ing?” he asked.

“To the un­de­cid­eds and youths who were not alive in 1986, the last op­po­si­tion that bashed the PNM and promised the earth, moon and stars was the NAR, which wiped out the PNM 33-3. Every­body re­joiced, ‘We get rid of de PNM! PNM gone! PNM dead!’

“But how did the NAR re­spond to all their promis­es they couldn’t keep? They had to go to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), so the IMF was here in T&T un­der the NAR. Mr (ANR) Robin­son, Mr (Bas­deo) Pan­day and Mr Car­son Charles - UNC’s can­di­date Ma­haraj’s ad­vis­er now - they were part of the NAR which brought the IMF to T&T and the first thing the NAR had to do was cut pub­lic ser­vants’ salaries by ten per cent and cut their Cost of Liv­ing al­lowances.

“I want to tell pub­lic ser­vants, you fol­low Kam­la, An­cel Ro­get and the PSA pres­i­dent, who say they giv­ing pub­lic ser­vants 15 per cent pay in­crease, and yay, you win the elec­tion and you go­ing by Courts, buy­ing new TV, fridge and car. You hap­py, you get rid of PNM but I promise you, his­to­ry has a way of re­peat­ing it­self and is un­kind to those who don’t learn from its past!”

Deyals­ingh added: “When af­ter six months Kam­la and Phillip Alexan­der and An­cel Ro­get run out of mon­ey to main­tain the lifestyle they promised, you we will have the IMF Part 2 in T&T and you see all dem civ­il ser­vants who fol­low­ing the PSA with Kam­la, well half ah all yuh gone.

“When the IMF went in­to Bar­ba­dos, which is un­der an IMF pro­gramme, Bar­ba­dos had to fire 3,000 pub­lic ser­vants. What is your fate?

“So, the fork in the road for vot­ers is the IMF and de­val­u­a­tion un­der the UNC or re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment un­der PNM.”

Deyals­ingh said an­oth­er rea­son for not elect­ing the UNC is that it sees every­thing on­ly based on race.

Of­fer­ing “ev­i­dence” why UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t want the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) as T&T’s fi­nal ap­pel­late court, he quot­ed a Ju­ly 2018 let­ter to the ed­i­tor by Arthur Dash.

“In his col­umn in the Trinidad Guardian on May 30 un­der the head­line ‘CCJ Tantrums’, Wes­ley Gib­bings stat­ed, ‘We re­call for in­stance Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­mark­able out­burst in 2005 that the court (CCJ) lacked East In­di­an judges and was there­fore un­ac­cept­able’.”

Gib­bings’ ref­er­ence was to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Feb­ru­ary 2005 state­ment dur­ing a Par­lia­ment de­bate on a CCJ bill, when she crit­i­cised the court’s com­po­si­tion say­ing it didn’t re­flect the Caribbean’s pop­u­la­tion and there was not a sin­gle judge of In­di­an ori­gin when half of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion is of In­di­an ori­gin.

Deyals­ingh said of Gib­bings’ quote: “So what she’s say­ing is that a black judge can­not dis­pense jus­tice to an In­di­an de­fen­dant and dem peo­ple want your vote and you’re fooled by that? You go­ing to vote for that?”

He said the PNM didn’t see race or colour.

“We don’t go to an Eid fes­ti­val and mud­dle up and say who we putting for elec­tion or at­tack the Catholic church like Phillip Alexan­der,” Deyals­ingh said.


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