Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of buy­ing votes for $300 as part of their at­tempt to en­sure suc­cess in the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion.

He al­leged that the source of these funds came from ill-got­ten gains dur­ing their time in of­fice. The PM­made the al­le­ga­tions dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) first vir­tu­al po­lit­i­cal meet­ing last night at the Bagatelle Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Diego Mar­tin.

Row­ley boast­ed that no one in his gov­ern­ment was run­ning from the po­lice, nor had any­one used their po­si­tion to fur­ther their own in­ter­ests dur­ing the past five years.

Dur­ing the tele­vi­sion and ra­dio broad­cast, he said, "Tonight I can stand on this plat­form and tell you with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion there is no­body in my Gov­ern­ment who is run­ning from the po­lice."

The PM said his Gov­ern­ment was about solv­ing prob­lems. Ques­tion­ing what was their role, he added, "And then you will re­alise that their so­lu­tion in this elec­tion is to spend as much as the mon­ey they thief to come in­to con­stituen­cies and pay you $300 for your vote."

He re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that un­der T&T’s laws, it is an of­fence to pay some­body to vote.

Row­ley added, "But sec­ond­ly, your vote is worth more than $300. And any­one who is pay­ing you to vote is in­sult­ing you and your in­tel­li­gence, and your chil­dren's fu­ture is at risk in the hand of any such per­son."

Row­ley said the one ques­tion cit­i­zens must ask them­selves is, "Where is that mon­ey com­ing from? We know the an­swer al­ready, but ask them the ques­tion. That is the mon­ey they thief that now com­ing out. Their friends who helped them thief it pay­ing them to get back in of­fice to con­tin­ue to thief it."

He urged the pop­u­la­tion to stay far away from UNC’s leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her kinder­garten class.

Row­ley said there were two op­tions avail­able to the Oil­field Work­ers and Trade Union in op­er­at­ing Petrotrin's re­fin­ery —ei­ther to go with the Gov­ern­ment's pro­pos­al "and we try and get it done" or "wait for the UNC to come in­to of­fice and start it back." He claimed that the UNC has no in­ten­tion of do­ing any­thing in the oil in­dus­try.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­di­cat­ed that once she is vot­ed back in­to of­fice, she will re­open the re­fin­ery.

Row­ley warned the coun­try to look out for the three demons—in­dis­ci­pline, in­ci­sive­ness and in­ac­tion. He said this would de­stroy the coun­try’s prospects of mov­ing for­ward.

The PM said while he has been try­ing to pro­tect the na­tion from the UNC's ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, "Their ma­jor in­ter­est is to hide from the po­lice. They want to get back in­to gov­ern­ment to stop the nu­mer­ous crim­i­nal op­er­a­tions at the po­lice against them for their mis­con­duct."

Row­ley said the PNM had main­tained their si­lence "and left them to the po­lice."

Row­ley said when­ev­er their num­ber is called "they must not be able to say that their dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stance is as a re­sult of any po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion or pros­e­cu­tion. Let the wheels of jus­tice turn. They turn slow­ly but they do turn."

High­light­ing his gov­ern­ment’s achieve­ments and the spe­cial ef­forts it had un­der­tak­en to keep this coun­try afloat, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Row­ley de­tailed every move the PNM had un­der­tak­en since as­sum­ing of­fice in 2015.