RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As she launched her par­ty’s slate of 110 can­di­dates at the UNC’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment cam­paign ral­ly on Mon­day night, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed her plan to tack­le crime by hir­ing 1,400 mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and re­in­stat­ing com­mu­ni­ty com­fort pa­trols.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at the Na­pari­ma Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um in San Fer­nan­do, Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed the Gov­ern­ment was re­sort­ing to smear cam­paigns and de­cep­tion while her par­ty was com­mit­ed to con­crete plans, poli­cies, ideas, and pro­grammes.

She said the pri­ma­ry con­cern for cit­i­zens was the fear they ex­pe­ri­ence dai­ly and high tax­es.

“Peo­ple are tired of liv­ing in con­stant fear of mur­ders, school vi­o­lence, home in­va­sions, and wor­ries about their chil­dren’s safe­ty, job loss, high food and fu­el prices, flood­ing, high bills, los­ing their homes, and be­ing un­able to af­ford health­care,” she said, adding that the Gov­ern­ment was ex­ac­er­bat­ing those anx­i­eties by im­pos­ing ad­di­tion­al tax­es.

“They want you to vote for prop­er­ty tax ... vote for a 25 per cent in­her­i­tance tax, vote for es­ca­lat­ing crime and mur­ders,” she de­clared.

Sup­port­ers re­spond­ed with blar­ing horns and a re­sound­ing “No!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so com­ment­ed on in­creas­es in food prices: “Just this week, Row­ley in­creased flour prices by 33 per cent. When flour prices rise, it af­fects the prices of all meals. They want you to vote for pay­ing more for your prop­er­ty!”

Ac­cord­ing to the UNC leader, there is a grow­ing dis­par­i­ty be­tween the soar­ing prof­its for banks and the 20 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in pover­ty, as re­port­ed by the Cen­tal Bank. She said the mid­dle class was grad­u­al­ly erod­ing and peo­ple are liv­ing pay cheque to pay cheque be­cause they lack op­por­tu­ni­ties for wealth cre­ation.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­nounced the non-ne­go­tiable four per cent in­crease in pub­lic sec­tor wages, de­scrib­ing it as an in­sult to cit­i­zens.

If the her par­ty wins the elec­tion, she promised, UNC-con­trolled re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions would de­ploy mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers to se­cure schools and the sur­round­ing streets stu­dents use to trav­el home or catch a taxi.

“We will en­sure the safe­ty of your chil­dren when you are un­able to do so,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so pledged to fa­cil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween coun­cil­lors and the po­lice.

“We will re­in­state the com­mu­ni­ty com­fort pa­trols in com­mu­ni­ties and their sur­round­ing ar­eas,” she vowed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so promised to col­lab­o­rate with the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to re­store and im­prove street light­ing.

She ex­pressed con­cern about dark, crime-rid­den ar­eas through­out the coun­try and em­pha­sised the need to pro­tect cit­i­zens as they trav­el at night, at­tempt­ing to reach home safe­ly.

On the preva­lence of home in­va­sions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told par­ty sup­port­ers: “I am com­mit­ting to fight for you and pass Stand Your Ground leg­is­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She said de­fend­ing one’s home and fam­i­ly was a fun­da­men­tal hu­man right recog­nised by the Unit­ed Na­tions, and stressed the im­por­tance of state en­force­ment to safe­guard this right.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise their right to vote and take a stand against ex­ces­sive tax­a­tion and the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crime. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said with the gen­er­al elec­tion draw­ing near, it is time for peo­ple to take a stand against the PNM. She ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to vote for love and not lies.