Af­ter UK Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son bowed to pub­lic pres­sure to have an in­quiry in­to his Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar is call­ing for a Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to this Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of the virus in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

At Mon­day night’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fo­rum, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said she’s send­ing a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley to­day (Tues­day), seek­ing that he ask the Pres­i­dent to ap­point a com­mis­sion for this.

She said peo­ple are in melt­down, thou­sands have no food and lit­tle Gov­ern­ment sup­port, and yet the Dr Kei­th Row­ley led ad­min­is­tra­tion has not giv­en specifics on a plan to get the coun­try work­ing again or on bor­der re­open­ing or an of­fi­cial vac­ci­na­tion plan.

She not­ed how be­reaved rel­a­tives of COVID fa­tal­i­ties in the UK formed a non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion and pressed John­son for the in­quiry which he didn’t com­mit to do­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, but ahead. Per­sad- Bisses­sar said her let­ter will call for a probe of the Gov­ern­ment’s re­spons­es here, the ba­sis and ad­vice in­form­ing its de­ci­sion on mea­sures in­clud­ing on the State of Emer­gency, reg­u­la­tions, meth­ods of col­lect­ing health da­ta, giv­ing in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic, gath­er­ing sci­en­tif­ic da­ta and oth­er queries.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment failed to an­swer ques­tions in yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing where the Gov­ern­ment sought ap­proval for $2.9b to run the coun­try un­til the end of the fis­cal year in Sep­tem­ber.

Slam­ming CEPEP work­ers 33 per cent salary cut, Per­sad- Bisses­sar de­tailed the salaries of CEPEP man­age­ment from the CEO’s $40,000 base salary (plus al­lowances) to the HR of­fi­cer’s $15,000. She said this was giv­en in Par­lia­ment.

“One law for the big boys and an­oth­er for work­ers - that’s how Gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tis­es how they spend mon­ey they come to seek ap­proval for.“

She added when MPs re­turn to Par­lia­ment to­mor­row to de­bate leg­is­la­tion for the $2.9B, the UNC would present its mo­tion of con­tempt against Row­ley con­cern­ing his re­cent re­marks blam­ing vig­ils for COVID spikes.

UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal chal­lenged CEPEP’s 200 mem­ber man­age­ment and ex­ec­u­tive staff to take stipends af­ter CEPEP work­ers got their 33 per cent pay cut.

“Hav­ing 10,000 peo­ple go home will push peo­ple to pover­ty and lead to more crime. Gov­ern­ment must vac­ci­nate the 10,000 work­ers and get them back to work so they can pro­vide for their fam­i­lies.”

The gov­ern­ment clar­i­fied the mon­ey be­ing paid to CEPEP work­ers was not a salary but rather a grant since they were not work­ing at this time.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal called for Gov­ern­ment to al­low peo­ple who were vac­ci­nat­ed abroad to re­turn home au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. He al­so called for a pub­lic in­quiry in­to the stan­dard of care at hos­pi­tals and re­gard­ing the deaths of the more than 577 peo­ple who have died from COVID-19.