Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment will es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion on the Bank­ing and Fi­nan­cial Sec­tor to en­sure cit­i­zens are not ex­ploit­ed via preda­to­ry fees and which will work to en­sure a fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign ex­change, says Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She al­so pledged that her gov­ern­ment would pay the fam­i­lies of the dead LM­CS divers com­pen­sa­tion if the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment doesn’t pay them and will have po­lice in schools to pro­tect chil­dren from bul­lies.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed what her UNC “Coali­tion of In­ter­ests” will do dur­ing last night’s elec­tion cam­paign launch at Na­pari­ma Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

She said the UNC’s elec­tion vic­to­ry will re­quire “... ac­tion from every cit­i­zen who is fed up with one small group un­fair­ly get­ting rich­er while you strug­gle be­cause the PNM us­es the pow­er of the State to op­press you.”

“One small group gets every­thing, all the forex and op­por­tu­ni­ties, while you and your chil­dren get noth­ing. That ends April 28th with your vote for the UNC!” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “When UNC wins, busi­ness­es win with low­er tax­es, in­vest­ments in port op­er­a­tions, low­er se­cu­ri­ty costs, more forex and a fo­cus on grow­ing mi­cro, small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es.

“Busi­ness­es win with the Es­tab­lish­ment of a Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion on the Bank­ing and Fi­nan­cial Sec­tor to en­sure cit­i­zens are not ex­ploit­ed via preda­to­ry fees and in­ter­est rate spreads and that banks and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions per­form their es­sen­tial de­vel­op­men­tal role of con­vert­ing na­tion­al sav­ings in­to na­tion­al in­vest­ment.

“The com­mis­sion will al­so work to en­sure a fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of forex and dereg­u­late fi­nan­cial bu­reau­cra­cy to fa­cil­i­tate busi­ness trans­ac­tion pro­cess­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said schools will have a full com­ple­ment of re­quired deans of dis­ci­pline, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, school safe­ty of­fi­cers and po­lice of­fi­cers to pro­tect chil­dren.

“You will not have to wor­ry that your child is be­ing bul­lied every day at school. I’ll send the TTPS full-time in­to schools to stop your chil­dren from be­ing ter­rorised and men­tal­ly dam­aged by bul­lies. Too many chil­dren are go­ing in­to de­pres­sion and live in fear dai­ly,” she said, adding that the is­sue of Im­ran Khan at St Mary’s Col­lege over 30 years ago was one of the most de­press­ing things she’d read.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar slammed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment for putting “all its eggs in­to the Drag­on gas bas­ket,” as she cit­ed the lat­est post from US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar read out the post, which stat­ed that the Unit­ed States will not tol­er­ate any coun­tries or their oil com­pa­nies pro­duc­ing, ex­tract­ing or ex­port­ing oil and oil-re­lat­ed prod­ucts with the Nico­las Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who slammed new Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and his promised plans at length, urged vot­ers not to ex­change a “rag­ing bull for a bul­ly.” She said strong, com­pe­tent lead­er­ship is not about “... bouff­ing, be­rat­ing, blam­ing, and bul­ly­ing cit­i­zens; it’s about lis­ten­ing, com­fort­ing, en­cour­ag­ing, and ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the lives and liveli­hoods of peo­ple.”

Four new can­di­dates named

The UNC pre­sent­ed a num­ber of can­di­dates as well as four more: Michelle Ben­jamin (Moru­ga/Table­land), Khadi­jah Ameen (St Au­gus­tine), Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East) and the Love Move­ment en­ti­ty’s Robert Mitchell (Laven­tille West).

To those who kept won­der­ing about UNC’s en­tire line­up, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Hur­ry bird don’t build good nest. We’ve tak­en our time to screen over 200 can­di­dates and re­leased can­di­dates in the mar­gin­als. We have de­lib­er­at­ed ac­cord­ing­ly, we took the time to se­lect the best can­di­dates to rep­re­sent your in­ter­ests. We’ll have space for every­one to serve if we all work to­geth­er and win to­geth­er. Our op­po­nents must not dic­tate our pace.”

She added, “We’re strate­gic, high­ly fo­cused, and well-pre­pared. We’ll roll out our can­di­dates as we plan it, every day be­tween now and Nom­i­na­tion Day. All can­di­dates will be reg­is­tered on Nom­i­na­tion Day—don’t be afraid, they’ll all be in­side.”

For those who don’t get se­lect­ed, she said there is “al­ways to­mor­row and there is re­al hope in UNC and PEP” and they would be tak­en care of.