Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment will seek to in­crease the 2024 Bud­get by $2.3 bil­lion next week Mon­day and is con­sid­er­ing in­creas­es on VAT and cer­tain oth­er tax­es, says Op­po­si­tion UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who al­so launched a blis­ter­ing at­tack on the dis­si­dent slate in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, some of whom she said came from the PNM.

Cit­ing the PNM’s ac­cu­sa­tions of the UNC as be­ing “un­pa­tri­ot­ic”, she not­ed the dis­si­dents’ ri­val slate—and one oth­er fledg­ling par­ty—have used the word “Pa­tri­ot” in their names.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ver­bal­ly swung hard at the dis­si­dents and MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate when she at last night’s launch of the Stars team con­test­ing the June 15 in­ter­nal elec­tion against Paray’s slate.

Ad­dress­ing a packed Cou­va Mul­ti­pur­pose Hall, Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged mem­bers to se­lect the Star team.

“We can on­ly win the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion if we have a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive that works with the du­ly elect­ed leader in the in­ter­est of our great UNC par­ty and if we have an ex­ec­u­tive that sup­ports the same poli­cies and plans as the leader.”

She said the ri­val team and the PNM didn’t sup­port stand-your-ground laws, laws against home in­va­sions or easy ac­cess to le­gal firearms for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said some of the ri­vals had been in the PNM’s “bow­els and bo­som ... and you want to lead?

“What a shame that would be that a PNM com­ing to lead the UNC! It should nev­er hap­pen!” she said.

De­tail­ing the pat­tern of call­ing Na­tex elec­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar slammed dis­si­dents claim­ing oth­er­wise. She said there was a clear at­tempt by the ri­vals to desta­bilise the UNC.

“It’s clear that bla­tant lie was cre­at­ed in a cal­cu­lat­ed, sin­is­ter at­tempt to desta­bilise the UNC, cre­ate mis­chief and as­sist the de­struc­tive PNM in up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. I don’t like what the oth­er slate is do­ing out in pub­lic, dirty­ing the UNC’s name,” she said.

“Mem­bers of the op­pos­ing slate have pre­vi­ous­ly been long-stand­ing PNM mem­bers—don’t ever for­get that!” she added.

Cit­ing PNM’s ac­cu­sa­tions that the UNC was “un­pa­tri­ot­ic”, she said, “I find it alarm­ing the oth­er slate opt­ed to call their team ‘Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots’, and there’s an­oth­er fledg­ling po­lit­i­cal par­ty named ‘Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’—two par­ties with the word ‘pa­tri­ots’.

“Giv­en the PNM’s wide­spread, on­go­ing ac­cu­sa­tions that the UNC have nev­er been ‘pa­tri­ots’, is it that it’s the same PNM-fi­nanced pro­pa­gan­da team that’s be­hind all these ‘pa­tri­ot­ic’ groups seek­ing to desta­bilise UNC? Slan­der­ing the names of good peo­ple ... the oth­er slate’s rhetoric is word for word PNM pro­pa­gan­da...but be care­ful what you say, don’t take my kind­ness for weak­ness!”

Not­ing ar­ti­cles quot­ing Paray, she said, the oth­er slate is spread­ing “the same tired elit­ist PNM pro­pa­gan­da that it’s a ‘stain’ to be as­so­ci­at­ed with the UNC. They want to be deputy leader but par­rot­ing PNM pro­pa­gan­da ... they don’t want to as­so­ciate with rank-and-file UNC sup­port­ers but want your vote. For them, none of you are bright, re­spect­ed or valu­able - but, they want your vote.”

She added, “Don’t buy that dirty de­mean­ing piece of PNM pro­pa­gan­da from the oth­er slate that peo­ple are ashamed to join the UNC be­cause they don’t want to as­so­ciate with you. That’s a lie!”

Mas­sive PNM spend­ing

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had “used” the Par­lia­ment over the last nine years to raise the bor­row­ing ceil­ing by $68 bil­lion.

“Clear ev­i­dence they’ve not been able to cre­ate a sin­gle new rev­enue stream. They’re now com­ing to Par­lia­ment next week Mon­day for ap­proval to spend an ad­di­tion­al $2.3 bil­lion in this fis­cal year. The 2024 Bud­get was ap­proved at $59.1 bil­lion and they’re com­ing for an ad­di­tion­al $2.3 bil­lion—for a to­tal of $61.4 bil­lion...where did they spend this $59 bil­lion?”

She was re­fer­ring to the up­com­ing mid-year re­view pro­ceed­ings.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “They want $2.3 bil­lion more. Where will they get this mon­ey? Bor­row and tax! I’m re­li­ably in­formed they’ll in­crease the Cen­tral Bank Over­draft again from 20 per cent to 25 per cent—tell me that’s not true you’re con­sid­er­ing that—and al­so con­sid­er­ing to in­crease VAT.

“They’re propos­ing to raise in­come tax­es on some cit­i­zens and propos­ing to re­move ex­emp­tions from the In­come Tax Act. They’re plan­ning to in­tro­duce Pre­sump­tive Tax­a­tion and are plan­ning in­creas­es in Cor­po­ra­tion Tax and Busi­ness Levy. And they’re com­ing to cut more so­cial pro­grammes. This Gov­ern­ment is broke!” she claimed.

She said Gov­ern­ment was com­ing next Mon­day for ap­proval to spend an ad­di­tion­al $120 mil­lion in le­gal fees—$30m for lo­cal lawyers and $90m for for­eign lawyers.

“Which means in this fis­cal year of 2024—from the AG Of­fice alone—they’ll spend $165 mil­lion to pay lawyers. This ex­cludes le­gal fees paid by oth­er agen­cies. Last year, the AG spent $253 mil­lion in le­gal fees from his of­fice alone. We cal­cu­lat­ed from 2015 to 2024 in the AG’s of­fice on­ly, they’ve spent over $820 mil­lion in le­gal fees,” she said.