Jan­nelle Bernard

Se­nior Re­porter

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly is call­ing on the pop­u­la­tion to take a stand against the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s pro­posed in­creas­es for top pub­lic of­fi­cials.

He was speak­ing yes­ter­day dur­ing a Face­book livestream.
Ram­bal­ly said the is­sue tran­scend­ed po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances and called on the pop­u­la­tion to send a strong sig­nal to the Gov­ern­ment.

He said, “I will be join­ing the march­es in the com­ing days, and I urge you to join us. I al­so urge every­one to dri­ve with their head­lights turned on through­out Sat­ur­day, 7th De­cem­ber. 

“Ladies and gen­tle­men, broth­ers and sis­ters, this is not a par­ty is­sue; it is not a par­ti­san is­sue. It does not mat­ter whether you are PNM, UNC, NTA, HOPE, To­ba­go par­ty. This is a peo­ple is­sue. I am not telling you here to­day how to vote; you will de­cide that in time on your own. What I am telling you is to take the fight to the Gov­ern­ment.”

The Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment was quick to clar­i­fy that his call was a peace­ful one, and he was in no way try­ing to in­cite vi­o­lence.

“At no point in time am I say­ing that any­body is to in­volve and en­gage in vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ty. There is noth­ing sedi­tious about this; what is sedi­tious is the fact that you can have top elect­ed of­fi­cials who want to give these huge salary in­creas­es, but yet still you have peo­ple who are re­al­ly suf­fer­ing on the low­er end of the spec­trum. To me, this is sedi­tious,” Ram­bal­ly said.