Renu­ka Singh

Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her par­ty will not sup­port the new gun leg­is­la­tion in its present form.

Speak­ing at a UNC lo­cal gov­ern­ment meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Mon­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for amend­ments to pro­tect in­no­cent cit­i­zens be­fore she would sup­port the pro­posed law.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so took time to pay her re­spects to Wayne Chance who passed away ear­ly on Mon­day morn­ing.

She said that Chance sought re­form for pris­on­ers, un­like the PNM who was seek­ing to lock up peo­ple and throw away the key on the An­ti-gun leg­is­la­tion.

“If your child trav­el­ling in a maxi, a taxi and there is a gun in that ve­hi­cle, your child get­ting locked up, we say­ing that can­not be right,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the amend­ment she pro­posed was that if the per­son al­ready had a pri­or con­vic­tion, then there should be no bail the sec­ond time the per­son is caught with a weapon.

She said even po­lice of­fi­cers could spite a per­son and plant some weapon on or near­by to get them caught.

“I not sup­port­ing that. We not pass­ing the present law,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the PNM would be go­ing from “pil­lar to post” say­ing that the UNC sup­port­ed crim­i­nals.

Ac­cord­ing to the new gun law, which was passed in the House back in Sep­tem­ber, the Gov­ern­ment pro­posed se­vere penal­ties on any­one found with il­le­gal firearms.

“They need our votes. If we do not sup­port it in Par­lia­ment, the bill would fail,” she said.

She said that the bill sought to im­pose dra­con­ian mea­sures on the peo­ple.

“In its present form we are not sup­port­ing the bill,” she said.

She said she lis­tened to Row­ley crit­i­cize her for call­ing him by his sur­name and say­ing she should ad­dress him by his full ti­tle.

“Well, I tell you, Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, we are com­ing for you. We are go­ing to vote you out,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said the whole coun­try was suf­fer­ing and every­one knew it ex­cept the man who in­sist­ed peo­ple call him by his ti­tle.

“But I tell you, I have a set of moth­ers and fa­thers be­cause every­where I go peo­ple call­ing me Kam­la. But I am not ashamed of my name, I am Kam­la, I am UNC and I am proud,” she said to cheers from the au­di­ence.

“You for re­al? You stand up on a plat­form and telling peo­ple what to call you? Why don’t you tell the peo­ple your plan to fight crime, to cre­ate jobs for them? Why don’t you tell the peo­ple that af­ter four years you have achieved noth­ing, you are a to­tal fail­ure,” she said.

She said the PNM was get­ting more and more des­per­ate and list­ed state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on the cam­paign plat­forms.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley first said there was a plot to have him killed and when that did not work he brought up the Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca is­sue and when the coun­ty asked ‘who the hell cares’, he is now say­ing that the UNC plot­ted to have the au­thor of the book on the Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca is­sue killed.

“Good Lord. How much more lu­di­crous could you be­come? How much more fool­ish could you be,” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith was of­fi­cial­ly look­ing for au­thor Christo­pher Wylie and could not lo­cate him.

“You feel a UNC mem­ber go­ing to find Wylie to threat­en him?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She warned the vot­ers and sup­port­ers to not feel sor­ry for the PNM.

“Be­cause they not feel­ing sor­ry for you,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar Claimed that a par­cel of land bought back in 2009 by Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan is now be­ing bought back by the Works Min­istry for State works in Ari­ma for the Gua­napo Bridge project.

She showed pho­tographs of the changes to the land and a re-di­rec­tion of a riv­er and bridge con­struc­tion in Ari­ma.

She read out the land deed which al­leged that back in 2009, Sinanan had pur­chased the land for $1.9 mil­lion.

“I call on Ro­han Sinanan to say whether he was part of the de­ci­sion to pur­chase the land or whether like his At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, he left the room when the deal was be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed,” she said.