JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is deny­ing claims by the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) that her par­ty is en­gag­ing in “po­lit­i­cal pla­gia­rism dis­guised as pol­i­cy.”

In a one-word re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called it all “Lies” when asked for a re­sponse.

In a state­ment is­sued Tues­day, the NTA said it recog­nised that the UNC has in­ten­si­fied its cam­paign rhetoric on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, in an at­tempt to sway mem­bers of the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices and their fam­i­lies.

But it added, “It has be­come em­bar­rass­ing­ly ap­par­ent that every pol­i­cy pro­pos­al they’ve pre­sent­ed is a di­rect copy of re­search, drafts, and ini­tia­tives de­vel­oped by NTA Po­lit­i­cal Leader, Gary Grif­fith—some of which were im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing his tenure as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vi­sor.”

The NTA claimed, “What the UNC is do­ing is not lead­er­ship. It is po­lit­i­cal pla­gia­rism dis­guised as pol­i­cy. The cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go must not be de­ceived in­to re­plac­ing one form of in­com­pe­tence with an­oth­er.

“The UNC is pro­mot­ing poli­cies they did not orig­i­nate, do not com­pre­hend, and are un­qual­i­fied to man­age. They lack in­di­vid­u­als with­in their ranks with the re­quired train­ing, ex­pe­ri­ence, or se­nior-lev­el se­cu­ri­ty back­ground to lead such trans­for­ma­tion.”

The re­lease from the NTA claimed that some of the poli­cies in­clud­ed split­ting the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in two for in­ter­nal threats; a Min­istry of Jus­tice; the $1,000 month­ly sup­port for mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices fam­i­lies; the $1 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for fam­i­lies of of­fi­cers killed in the line of du­ty, and pro­vid­ing firearms to cit­i­zens, all stemmed from Grif­fith. 

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­fused to en­gage fur­ther in re­sponse to the al­le­ga­tions by the NTA and stuck to the one-word re­ply “Lies.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to UNC shad­ow na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Sad­dam Ho­sein for fur­ther com­ment on the NTA’s claims but re­ceived no re­sponse.