Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ex­press­ing sym­pa­thy for hard­work­ing farm­ers, UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has vowed to es­tab­lish a spe­cial agri­cul­tur­al court to ad­dress prae­di­al lar­ce­ny if elect­ed to of­fice.

Dur­ing the UNC's cam­paign meet­ing on Thurs­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said 190 lawyers aligned with the UNC would as­sist in draft­ing new leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect farm­ers.

She al­so pledged to launch a Na­tion­al Youth De­vel­op­ment Plan "aimed at cre­at­ing path­ways out of crime for young peo­ple in hard-hit crime com­mu­ni­ties.”

Promis­ing full sup­port for farm­ers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC would fa­cil­i­tate land ac­cess, im­prove in­fra­struc­ture, es­tab­lish an agri­cul­tur­al court, and in­tro­duce tougher penal­ties for agri­cul­tur­al crimes.

“We will en­able land ac­cess for farm­ers, strength­en in­fra­struc­ture and man­age­ment boost­ing,” she said.

“We will set up an agri­cul­tur­al court and en­force harsh­er penal­ties, com­bat­ting agri­cul­tur­al crime, prae­di­al lar­ce­ny so that we could deal with the mat­ter swift­ly.”

Ad­dress­ing first-time vot­ers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that many were be­tween eight and twelve years old when the cur­rent gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice.

“What you are see­ing to­day—hard­ship, out-of-con­trol crime, home in­va­sions, mur­ders, job­less­ness, hope­less­ness—this is not how T&T used to be.”

She drew a dis­tinc­tion be­tween the UNC and the PNM: “The UNC serves the peo­ple when in gov­ern­ment. But when the PNM is in gov­ern­ment, the peo­ple end up serv­ing the PNM’s fake elite fi­nanciers.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC would ac­cel­er­ate its Grad­u­ate Place­ment Pro­gramme and im­ple­ment a five-year Na­tion­al Youth De­vel­op­ment Plan.

“When a young man says, ‘Ban­dit is a re­al job,’ you know we are lost. A gen­er­a­tion is lost. We are clear about the stakes.”

“We are not just deal­ing with a crime prob­lem; we are deal­ing with a cri­sis of op­por­tu­ni­ty and dig­ni­ty,” she said.

She added: “The UNC will dis­rupt the pipeline to gangs and re­place it with a path­way to growth. We will work to en­sure that a 16-year-old in En­ter­prise, in Ari­ma, in Laven­tille, in Ma­yaro, or here in Moru­ga/Table­land has more to hope for than a gun or a hus­tle.”

“We will make sure that be­ing skilled, ed­u­cat­ed, and em­ployed is more re­ward­ing than be­ing feared. And we will give young per­sons a chance to be­long, to con­tribute, and to lead.”

She urged cit­i­zens to vis­it the UNC man­i­festo on­line and fa­mil­iarise them­selves with the pro­grammes and poli­cies the par­ty will im­ple­ment if re­turned to of­fice.