Gail Alexan­der

The coun­try doesn’t want apolo­gies from PNM’s Kei­th Scot­land or ex­pla­na­tions from the Prime Min­is­ter about who’s “on edge”—but peo­ple want a re­ver­sal of the fu­el price hike and the 2023 Bud­get and don’t want to be bur­dened with prop­er­ty tax now, says UNC Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der.

At Sun­day’s UNC me­dia brief­ing Ly­der and UNC Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts trashed min­is­ters’ state­ments on the bud­get par­tic­u­lar­ly Scot­land’s re­cent apol­o­gy for the “coal pot and bi­cy­cle” rec­om­men­da­tions he made dur­ing the bud­get de­bate.

Ly­der said: “We heard min­is­ters tell you to sac­ri­fice, ride bi­cy­cles, go back to coal pots, stop eat­ing mac­a­roni pies and ham. Some stat­ing there’s no prob­lem with ef­fi­cient bus trans­port and be­rat­ing us as want­i­ng every­thing for noth­ing. This is the lev­el of dis­con­nec­tion from the pub­lic.”

He said Scot­land’s apolo­gies seemed he’d been hum­bled by the peo­ple “and apol­o­gised and was beg­ging”.

But dis­miss­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley’s re­cent view that cer­tain state­ments were more like­ly to ir­ri­tate cit­i­zens as “every­body’s on edge”, Ly­der added.

“Cit­i­zens are com­plete­ly over the precipice! The on­ly thing that can res­cue T&T is for this Gov­ern­ment to demit of­fice im­me­di­ate­ly!” Not­ing Gov­ern­ment promised to add com­mer­cial/in­dus­tri­al busi­ness­es to prop­er­ty tax, Ly­der ques­tioned how many years that would take when do­ing the prop­er­ty tax took three years. He felt com­mer­cial/in­dus­tri­al busi­ness­es should be charged the tax since they con­tribute to neigh­bour­hoods’ pol­lu­tion, pot­holes and us­ing garbage ser­vices.

But Ly­der said with T&T’s eco­nom­ic state, this isn’t the cor­rect time for prop­er­ty tax and when UNC re­turns to of­fice soon, would en­sure the tax isn’t im­ple­ment­ed “at this time.” Ly­der al­so called for clear­ing of the air on Cli­co is­sues .

Roberts said: “When you hear Kei­th Scot­land with his wide self, telling you he go ride bike, and he have a coal pot and if you can’t af­ford gas, buy more ex­pen­sive coal– the id­iots that they are!”

“Now they com­ing to feign apol­o­gy?! You (Scot­land) didn’t make the re­mark en pas­sant, you ex­plained what you’ll do and when ...now you com­ing to feign apol­o­gy?! The peo­ple will say fire bun you PNM !”

“Keep your apol­o­gy where it’s best kept—on your bike, in your coal pot and light it with a Three Plumes match!”

Roberts slammed Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter) Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les’s “ad­vice” on not go­ing to Movi­eTowne three times a week and eat­ing ham and mac­a­roni pie. “He fas and out of place!”

He al­so trashed state­ments by Pres­i­dent Paula Mae Weekes and Min­is­ters Sham­fa Cud­joe, Lisa Mor­ris Julien, Fitzger­ald Hinds, Colm Im­bert and Faris Al- Rawi.

“This is how the PNM is—they were nev­er hum­ble, they’re not here to serve the peo­ple !”

Roberts said PNM min­is­ters were all “Mi­ni Me” clones of Row­ley whom he claimed is “ar­ro­gant heart­less and in­com­pe­tent.”

Roberts crit­i­cised the Na­tion­al Award to CMO Dr Roshan Paras­ram cit­ing COVID deaths—and ques­tioned how this could be “pa­tri­o­tism”.

He added the prop­er­ty tax was op­pres­sive and the PNM “at this time” mustn’t suf­fer the peo­ple.

He said the Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment hadn’t re­moved the fu­el sub­sidy. Roberts said the bud­get had uni­fied peo­ple and brought a tip­ping point.