Gail Alexan­der

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress had no in­volve­ment in yes­ter­day’s protest by scrap iron work­ers in Clax­ton Bay.

This was the word from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night as she de­fend­ed her par­ty against ac­cu­sa­tions by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that it was be­hind yes­ter­day’s ac­tion.

Scrap iron work­ers protest­ing the ban on met­al ex­ports blocked the north­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way in Clax­ton Bay yes­ter­day morn­ing, caus­ing grid­lock traf­fic for sev­er­al hours.

Speak­ing at the Mon­day Night Fo­rum, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, de­fend­ed her par­ty—and peo­ple’s right to protest.

“I saw the man (Row­ley) said to­day that some­thing hap­pened on the high­way and it was Mr Ro­get and the UNC. So, some­body called me and asked me, ‘did the ge­ol­o­gists do a test on the sand and the sand came from Siparia? We used to call Siparia the Sand City, so did the ge­ol­o­gist do a test on the sand to de­ter­mine...?” she added.

“(But) the UNC had no part of that! I make that very clear - we had noth­ing to do with that! The per­sons in­volved will an­swer for them­selves and they have a right as every­body else, to protest, take ac­tion. And that’s hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try,”

On T&T’s 60th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T was a na­tion in cri­sis.

“(PNM) wreaked hav­oc and de­stroyed our coun­try and the worst hap­pened in the last sev­en years un­der the Row­ley PNM! When you sing for In­de­pen­dence, sing ‘Row­ley must Go!’”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she won’t at­tend Gov­ern­ment’s Spot­light on the Econ­o­my on Fri­day, which she felt will be a “pap­py show” where Row­ley and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will say every­thing is good.

“This Spot­light will be used as a mask to hide the truth of what’s re­al­ly hap­pen­ing in T&T. They’ll say the same things Stu­art Young tell CNN —that ‘peo­ple in T&T nev­er had it so good.’ Stu­art Young, where you liv­ing?”

Apart from the UNC’s Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions in the north, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she’d al­so writ­ten unions, NGOs and cham­bers of com­merce seek­ing their Bud­get views.

She said PNM’s meet­ing last Tues­day was meant to make peo­ple feel they shouldn’t com­plain about pot­holes and oth­er is­sues, but Row­ley seemed “a shad­ow of him­self” as he tried to “sell” the shut­down of Petrotrin.

“I hope the unions heard when he boast­ed of shut­ting down Petrotrin,” she added.

She said Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment of health work­ers’ bonus­es won’t ad­dress their work­ing con­di­tions or jobs for young doc­tors. She said Row­ley ac­cused the UNC of be­ing an­ti-Cari­com but the PNM sup­port­ed Guyana’s last Granger gov­ern­ment.

“Yet, he’s walk­ing around with Guyana’s Pres­i­dent as if they were best friends,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said UNC’s plans to im­prove T&T would in­clude re­duc­ing tax­es to help small busi­ness­es, in­vest­ing in ease of do­ing busi­ness, us­ing gov­ern­ment spend­ing to in­vest in peo­ple and tan­gi­ble in­vest­ments and putting more fo­cus on the vul­ner­a­ble.

“Many fam­i­lies can’t af­ford uni­forms and books, I re­peat my call for a uni­form grant and ac­cess to text­books to the most vul­ner­a­ble and al­low mi­grant chil­dren school­ing,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked whom Gov­ern­ment would blame for yes­ter­day’s flood­ing in the north.

UNC Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John, dis­miss­ing Row­ley’s up­com­ing trip to en­er­gy com­pa­nies, said there was no gas for Pt Lisas plants.

“So where you go­ing ... to see what, to bring back what?”

UNC MP Dave Tan­coo, chal­leng­ing Row­ley to prove that funds for road re­pairs were spent to save lives in COVID ex­pens­es, claimed the new road re­pair com­pa­ny is a “du­pli­ca­tion of the work be­ing done now by the PURE, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment bod­ies and Works.”