Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not im­pressed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s maid­en ad­dress to both Hous­es, ac­cus­ing her of miss­ing a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to call for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia from the steps lead­ing to the Par­lia­ment cham­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was flanked by Roodal Mooni­lal, Jear­lean John, Bar­ry Padarath and sev­er­al oth­er Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of­fi­cials.

She sug­gest­ed that Kan­ga­loo, who was once the PNM’s Point-a-Pierre MP and for­mer Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, went soft on the gov­ern­ment.

“It sound­ed like an apol­o­gy for the fail­ure of the sit­ting gov­ern­ment to ser­vice and she spoke of crime... It is num­ber one on our agen­da at this time. I say if you’re dead, you can en­joy noth­ing—ed­u­ca­tion, jobs, all the things that are need­ed in the coun­try. So, I think her ex­cel­len­cy missed a very gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to talk about trans­paren­cy, to talk about ac­count­abil­i­ty,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so took is­sue with the five points the pres­i­dent high­light­ed in her speech when she called for both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide to col­lab­o­rate on crime, pro­mote cul­ture and arts, make life more in­clu­sive for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, ad­dress con­cerns sur­round­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, and cre­ate a pub­lic bills com­mit­tee to im­prove the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion.

“She was pres­i­dent of the sen­ate for years. Not one of those things did she try to im­ple­ment. In­stead, op­er­at­ing on a dif­fer­ent lev­el, not for col­lab­o­ra­tion but shut­ting down speak­ers, no trans­paren­cy, no ac­count­abil­i­ty!” she said.

While Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert has been mum about the bud­get date, Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieves it could be read as ear­ly as Oc­to­ber 2. She does not think par­lia­ment will be re­con­vened be­fore then. How­ev­er, with a sus­pect­ed date in mind, the op­po­si­tion has be­gun to pre­pare.

“My team, we are all in prep for the up­com­ing bud­get. We have been shoring up our ma­te­ri­als, our re­spons­es for that,” she said.

Mean­while, she de­fend­ed the UNC from the gov­ern­ment’s cri­tique that it will like­ly with­hold sup­port for its ef­forts to ad­dress per­ti­nent na­tion­al is­sues. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC was not ob­struc­tion­ist and had called for col­lab­o­ra­tion with the PNM in the past, adding that she was ready and will­ing to do so now.

“We have called for col­lab­o­ra­tion on every front. We have met the gov­ern­ment on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, they refuse to meet and then they say we are ob­struc­tion­ists. We are will­ing and able at any time to meet with gov­ern­ment for a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort to bring back greater se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty in the coun­try,” she said.

As for a po­ten­tial cab­i­net reshuf­fle, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter should be the first to be re­as­signed.

“I think Hinds should go but I think all of them should go and when they go in­to re­treat, don’t come back! They should all go. What­ev­er re­treat is tak­ing place, I can’t see it help­ing them. We’re reshuf­fling a pack of jok­ers,” she said.

When asked by mem­bers of the me­dia about the pres­i­dent’s sug­ges­tion that the steel­pan be of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was a great idea but tas­sa should be added to the fray as well.

She end­ed with a wel­come to the four new in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors whom she hoped would main­tain their in­tegri­ty dur­ing this par­lia­men­tary term.—Da­reece Po­lo