UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, whom Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley “wants to bring to the an­ti-crime talks,” can’t lead those dis­cus­sions, since the UNC does not be­lieve any­thing Ar­mour has to say.

She re­vealed this at Mon­day’s Pave­ment Re­port meet­ing in St Joseph, re­in­forc­ing her calls for Row­ley to lead the Gov­ern­ment’s team to the dis­cus­sions.

Ar­mour was named as the con­venor of the pro­posed talks.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that the NTA leader Gary Grif­fith agreed to stand down from the Op­po­si­tion’s team for the talks, since it ap­peared his pres­ence “caus­es great an­guish” for Row­ley.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who claimed the Prime Min­is­ter was “tot­ing feel­ings” about Grif­fith, added, “Gary says he’ll stay home and you don’t have to take on that ta­ban­ca with him.”

She said the Op­po­si­tion re­mained pre­pared to have mean­ing­ful talks. With Grif­fith out, she said Row­ley can now re­con­sid­er his re­fusal to at­tend. But stat­ing that Row­ley “wants to bring” his AG to the talks, she re­count­ed the Mi­a­mi case Ar­mour was dis­qual­i­fied from and oth­er con­tro­ver­sial mat­ters con­cern­ing af­fi­davits un­der oath.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “So we can­not be­lieve any­thing he’ll say to us! He can­not lead these talks, Prime Min­is­ter! You must do the right thing! Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, you must lead these talks your­self! Don’t pass the buck!

“The Prime Min­is­ter must rise above ar­ro­gance and pet­ti­ness and make the peo­ple’s busi­ness a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty. The peo­ple’s busi­ness is your busi­ness! The elect­ed Gov­ern­ment has a con­sti­tu­tion­al and moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure T&T’s safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC had a well-con­sid­ered pack­age of mea­sures which she sub­mit­ted in her let­ter to Row­ley.

“The man say the let­ter was too long! He’s yet to re­spond be­cause Row­ley has a child­ish ta­ban­ca over Gary Grif­fith and re­fused to at­tend meet­ings. Not even the cour­tesy of a re­sponse to my Oc­to­ber 14 let­ter eh, we’re now at the end of No­vem­ber!”

Al­so slam­ming arm­chair politi­cians, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was er­ro­neous to sug­gest that crime-solv­ing rests equal­ly on the Op­po­si­tion’s shoul­ders.

“If so, then the Op­po­si­tion must be af­ford­ed equal op­por­tu­ni­ties at na­tion­al lead­er­ship and the in­tro­duc­tion of gov­er­nance mea­sures. But solv­ing crime isn’t an equal, bal­anced task for both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

“The UNC isn’t in Gov­ern­ment! We don’t have the re­sources Gov­ern­ment has! Apart from of­fer­ing well-thought-out pro­pos­als, the Op­po­si­tion’s role is to analyse and pro­vide ad­vice. We’ve re­peat­ed­ly done so.”

Row­ley did not re­spond to queries on Mon­day or yes­ter­day on Grif­fith’s de­ci­sion to stand down from the talks and the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s calls for him to at­tend the dis­cus­sion. Calls to oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Ar­mour, were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

In­her­i­tance tax af­ter elec­tion

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vived the UNC’s claim of an “in­her­i­tance tax”—which the Gov­ern­ment has de­nied—as she trashed Row­ley’s as­sur­ance that prop­er­ty tax will be at “din­ner mint cost”.

“Those are some very ex­pen­sive din­ner mints. St Joseph will have some of the high­est tax­es. The UNC gov­ern­ment will scrap this wicked tax. Row­ley and his fam­i­ly have the lux­u­ry of a tax­pay­er-fund­ed home, but you must pay prop­er­ty tax for a home you raked and scraped to build?!

“Next year, you’ll have in­creased fu­el prices, prop­er­ty tax­es, elec­tric­i­ty, wa­ter, taxi fares, and food prices. What type of cal­lous leader im­pos­es this type of painful bur­den on cit­i­zens?! Af­ter the next gen­er­al elec­tion, they plan to bring the in­her­i­tance tax. They planned to bring it af­ter the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion but put it on hold,” she claimed.