Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day is promis­ing to raise the min­i­mum wage if elect­ed to lead the coun­try.

It is one of sev­er­al ini­tia­tives she is promis­ing to low­er the cost of liv­ing in this coun­try.

Speak­ing at the Macaulay Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre last evening, Pan­day said the pay raise would not come with an in­crease to the cost of liv­ing, which off­sets such a move.

“We will raise the min­i­mum wage and not raise every­thing else at the same time, so it is in­ef­fec­tive and in­tro­duce what you call au­to­mat­ic cost of liv­ing ad­just­ments for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers,” she de­clared.

Pan­day said they will al­so use prof­its from the en­er­gy sec­tor to keep fu­el prices sta­ble.

“No more pump shocks!” she said.

The PF leader al­so promised to re­move Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) from “es­sen­tial food items and crack down on price goug­ing.”

“This is about pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies, work­ers and re­build­ing the mid­dle class,” she ex­plained.

Pan­day said she has been in­un­dat­ed with calls from fam­i­lies sim­ply ask­ing for food.

She lament­ed that the same Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment is now ask­ing for a fresh man­date, af­ter she claimed they failed to de­liv­er any­thing sub­stan­tial to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple in the last 10 years.

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion has been in pow­er for 10 years and they are still promis­ing you what they are go­ing to do if elect­ed for an­oth­er five years. So in or­der for them to do any­thing, they are telling you that you have to elect them for 15 years.”

Pan­day added, “So this elec­tion, he (Stu­art Young) must an­swer to you on be­half of his par­ty. This is a par­ty that closed down Ca­roni (1975 Ltd) and then they came again and closed down Petrotrin as if it be­longed to them. Did they ask you? Did they con­sult with you? And now they promise to de­liv­er to you every­thing they could not do in 10 years in one month.”

Pan­day al­so took aim at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), say­ing it too did no bet­ter when it com­mand­ed a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty be­tween 2010 and 2015.

“I don't hate the UNC. How could I hate the UNC? My fa­ther found­ed the UNC, but this is not the par­ty he found­ed. These politi­cians are mak­ing crazy promis­es. Where are they go­ing to get the mon­ey?

"De­spite hold­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty of 29 seats to the PNM's 12, un­der­stand what that means, they could have changed this coun­try. I want­ed them to change this coun­try but they did noth­ing to re­peal the bur­den­some prop­er­ty tax and they are com­ing now to say they are go­ing to do it. Stop play­ing peo­ple for fools.”

Blam­ing both par­ties for fail­ing the coun­try on crime, Pan­day said a Pa­tri­ot­ic Front gov­ern­ment has a clear plan for suc­cess.

“We will cre­ate safe zones, bring work­ing scan­ners to the ports, we will pro­tect our bor­ders. There is one OPV cur­rent­ly work­ing when il­le­gal guns and drugs are com­ing in­to our ports. We will launch fast-track courts. Open the courts! Morn­ing, noon, night and week­ends. We will in­tro­duce a pro­gramme called Work for Change to give at-risk youth a re­al chance of life with train­ing and jobs.”

Mean­while, com­ment­ing on UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­c­la­ra­tion that she has “purged” the par­ty of nepo­tism and from be­ing a one-man show, which has been in­ter­pret­ed as an at­tack on her fa­ther and for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day, Pan­day re­tort­ed, “Maybe when the leader purged the par­ty, she purged the his­to­ry and for­got my beloved fa­ther fought the PNM his en­tire life. A par­ty for over 20 years that tried re­lent­less­ly to im­prison him. And I would sup­port the PNM? They should be ashamed of them­selves.”

Pan­day again sought to dis­pel the nar­ra­tive that the PF would split UNC votes. She said they are af­ter PNM votes as well but they are more in­ter­est­ed in the large seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion who ig­nore polling day.

She al­so again dis­missed the UNC’s claims that the par­ty is fund­ed by the PNM.

“Do we look like we are be­ing fund­ed by the PNM? You see any maxi out­side? You see any tas­sa? Any moko jumbie? No. Look at our cam­paign and now look at the UNC's and PNM's cam­paigns and ask who fund­ing them?”

Pan­day said oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties are now scared of the PF’s po­ten­tial, as she claimed they con­tin­ue to ma­lign and in­tim­i­date her can­di­dates.

The PF is con­test­ing 37 seats, the sec­ond most be­ing chal­lenged by a sin­gle po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on April 28. The PNM is con­test­ing all 41 seats.