Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has lashed out at Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MPs who com­plained about the dis­rup­tion caused by the re­cent “Stink and Dut­ty” fete, ac­cus­ing them of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives for Diego Mar­tin were now “cry­ing foul” over in­con­ve­nience to res­i­dents, de­spite pre­vi­ous­ly de­fend­ing fete pro­mot­ers when the Gov­ern­ment act­ed against ex­ces­sive noise.

“The PNM MPs for Diego Mar­tin were the ones who cried for fete pro­mot­ers when the Gov­ern­ment clamped down on noise pol­lu­tion,” she said. “They even went as far as to raise false claims of racism and say it was an at­tack on ‘cul­ture’. So why are they com­plain­ing now?”

Her com­ments come in the wake of a mas­sive traf­fic grid­lock fol­low­ing the fete at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert crit­i­cised the use of the He­li­port on so­cial me­dia, ques­tion­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of host­ing a fete at what he de­scribed as a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty fa­cil­i­ty. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar brushed aside those crit­i­cisms, not­ing that the venue has a long his­to­ry of host­ing sim­i­lar events.

“The He­li­port has been used many times over the years for fetes,” she said. “This is noth­ing new.”

The event, usu­al­ly staged at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, was re­lo­cat­ed af­ter the Gov­ern­ment banned cul­tur­al events at sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

Thou­sands of pa­trons at­tempt­ing to leave the new venue were stuck in se­vere con­ges­tion, with sev­er­al rev­ellers re­port­ed­ly seek­ing al­ter­na­tive routes home by sea.

In the af­ter­math, ac­cess to Ch­aguara­mas and Care­nage was heav­i­ly re­strict­ed, forc­ing some busi­ness­es in the area to re­main closed.

On Mon­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Garvin Hen­ry, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the North-West polic­ing di­vi­sions, said that mea­sures were put in place to ease the dis­rup­tion, even as traf­fic con­di­tions de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. An es­ti­mat­ed 17,000 peo­ple at­tend­ed the fete.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed that the out­rage now be­ing ex­pressed was se­lec­tive.

“These same peo­ple had no prob­lem when fetes at the Lara Sta­di­um caused traf­fic to back up for miles along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way,” she said. “They al­so didn’t care about the noise that shook near­by com­mu­ni­ties in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said re­spon­si­bil­i­ty did not lie sole­ly with the Gov­ern­ment.

“If they have com­plaints, they need to take it up with their PNM MPs and coun­cil­lors, who they elect­ed for the area, as well as the pro­mot­ers,” she added.