The Op­po­si­tion is de­clar­ing war on the rul­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) over what they say is the fir­ing of thou­sands of work­ers, which has left par­ents un­der se­vere fi­nan­cial stress.  The Op­po­si­tion says many peo­ple have been telling them they re­gret vot­ing for the UNC.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of cre­at­ing hard­ship for fam­i­lies, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents, as they no longer have an in­come to buy school sup­plies.

Ad­dress­ing PNM sup­port­ers in Beetham Gar­dens on Thurs­day evening, Beck­les con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment, call­ing them cru­el for can­celling con­tracts at a time when par­ents will be most af­fect­ed.

Beck­les said, “What moth­er, what leader will sit down with­in a month or so of get­ting in­to of­fice and agree to a pol­i­cy that will send thou­sands of peo­ple home? But more im­por­tant­ly, know­ing that Ju­ly and Au­gust that is the time when chil­dren are home. That is the time when it’s food, it’s clothes, it’s school books. That is what it is. So you come and preach love and your de­f­i­n­i­tion of love is to send peo­ple home.

“Un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, we are pre­pared to fight for work­ers. We are pre­pared to fight for CEPEP work­ers. We are pre­pared to fight for con­trac­tors. We are pre­pared to fight for WASA work­ers. We are pre­pared to en­sure that jus­tice at all costs ex­ists in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so said many peo­ple have been ap­proach­ing her ex­press­ing re­gret for not vot­ing for the PNM.

She re­vealed, “We know that many of you did not vote for us on April 28th and I have had to op­por­tu­ni­ty from time to time to take my walk in Port-of-Spain and you’ve al­ready start­ed to tell me, ‘Pen­ny, Ms Beck­les, MP, we make a mis­take.’ But, it’s al­right. The im­por­tant thing is to ac­knowl­edge that, not just you, but we in the lead­er­ship as well, and to do what we have to do to re­build our par­ty, to unite and pre­pare for gov­ern­ment any­time the elec­tion is called.”

Beck­les al­so de­fend­ed her­self and her fam­i­ly against ac­cu­sa­tions by the Gov­ern­ment that her fa­ther was a re­cip­i­ent of nu­mer­ous CEPEP con­tracts.

She said her fa­ther, who has been long dead, was a con­trac­tor no dif­fer­ent from oth­ers.

Laven­tille West Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) Ka­reem Mar­celle said the Gov­ern­ment is re­spon­si­ble for thou­sands of peo­ple not know­ing where their next meal will come from, how they will pay their bills and buy school sup­plies for their chil­dren be­cause of CEPEP dis­missals.

He al­so blamed the Gov­ern­ment for the death of a CEPEP work­er’s ba­by.

Mar­celle claimed, “A CEPEP work­er who was preg­nant be­came so stressed and de­pressed with­in the last two weeks that to­day she is laid down in a bed in Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. The com­pli­ca­tions be­cause of the high blood pres­sure and the stress of not know­ing where her next dol­lar is go­ing to come from, she lost the ba­by. So, when I say we fight­ing and it’s war, it’s be­cause we un­der­stand it.” 

Mar­celle al­so en­cour­aged his con­stituents to sup­port fired CEPEP work­ers while the fight con­tin­ues.

He said many of his neigh­bours are for­mer CEPEP work­ers, so he un­der­stands their plight.

The Op­po­si­tion said it will be mo­bil­is­ing across the coun­try to fight for work­ers.