Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Sad­dam Ho­sein has called for probes by T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­to a Plipde­co memo which al­leged­ly re­quest­ed $20,400 from the state agency to buy 18 tick­ets for Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment’s “Red” Car­ni­val fete.

“They’re us­ing pub­lic mon­ey to buy PNM fete tick­ets, it’s a breach of the In­tegri­ty In Pub­lic Life law…” Ho­sein said at last night’s UNC pub­lic meet­ing in St Au­gus­tine.

Ho­sein read out the Plipde­co memo which was signed by Plipde­co’s act­ing pres­i­dent Cur­tis Den­nie. Ho­sein showed the Feb­ru­ary 24 memo signed by Den­nie and called for ex­pla­na­tion from Plipde­co as well as from PNM deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan.

The memo stat­ed Den­nie’s re­quest for fund­ing for the type of tick­ets (six gen­er­al tick­ets cost­ing $400 each) and 12 VIP tick­ets (cost­ing $1,500 each.) The memo stat­ed, “Kind­ly arrange for the cash/cheque to be made avail­able and payable to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).”

“How many oth­er state en­ter­pris­es bought tick­ets for PNM’s fete? The en­tire Plipde­co board must go!” Ho­sein added, not­ing the PNM’s fete was al­so held on state prop­er­ty - the Gov­ern­ment cam­pus in Port-of- Spain.

Ho­sein said the UNC has scored its first vic­to­ry in the elec­tion race, as Young had con­ced­ed and in­vit­ed three sets of elec­tion ob­servers af­ter UNC’s call.

“He get a po­lit­i­cal buss head from Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar," he said.

Ho­sein claimed if Young was a “bul­ly” 33 years ago, he con­tin­ues now. Not­ing the House Speak­er’s con­dem­na­tion of Young’s “za­m­my” state­ments in Par­lia­ment last year, Ho­sein claimed Young had the worse things to say about women in Par­lia­ment and doesn't re­spect them.

He said the UNC saw how Young “de­mor­alised” UNC MPs in Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing call­ing UNC MP Rod­ney Charles “dup­py.”

Ac­cus­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is of be­ing un­able to ad­vise the Cab­i­net, since she didn’t have a valid cur­rent cer­tifi­cate to prac­tice, Ho­sein not­ed the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s warn­ing that per­sons can’t prac­tice mi­nus a cer­tifi­cate. He said it would be em­bar­rass­ing for an AG to go to the court and un­der­go the nec­es­sary process­es to have a cer­tifi­cate is­sued.

Every speak­er launched blis­ter­ing dis­missals of new Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

In his ad­dress, which closed the meet­ing, deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal de­clared, “You can’t com­pare Young to UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Young has all the charm of Han­ni­bal Lecter … you can’t un­bul­ly your­self sir ... don’t al­low Young to bul­ly T&T!”

Mooni­lal wel­comed Wendy Lewis, for­mer pro­to­col of­fi­cer of for­mer PNM prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

Mooni­lal said Lewis is help­ing UNC San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date John Al­i­bo­cus. He said “many oth­ers are join­ing us.”

“Stu­art Young says it’s a ‘new chap­ter’ for PNM but that’s a new chap­ter in an old dis­gust­ing book,” Mooni­lal said, al­so slam­ming Gov­ern­ment’s ap­point­ment of Arthur Bar­ring­ton as the new Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency head.

“You ought not to be mak­ing ap­point­ments when you’re chang­ing gov­ern­ments!” Mooni­lal warned.

St Au­gus­tine MP Kadi­jah Ameen al­so launched blis­ter­ing state­ments against Young on the bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent that oc­curred dur­ing his school days at St Mary's Col­lege.

UNC To­co can­di­date Wayne Sturge, query­ing Young’s state­ments on the is­sues that oc­curred when he was in school, said, “What about the life in the is­sue that was de­stroyed? What about (teacher) ‘Short Pants', who tried to bring up the is­sue and had to end up leav­ing as the fa­ther was a big wig? Is that fair? And now he’s ask­ing for an­oth­er term to bul­ly we for the next five years - will you give him that chance?”

UNC deputy leader David Lee claimed that he’d passed Young on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) last night and that some­one who'd walked with Young in PNM’s Tu­na­puna walk­a­bout ear­li­er said that “90 per cent of the peo­ple didn’t come out to meet Young.”

Lee said Young would be the on­ly Prime Min­is­ter whose state­ments would not be record­ed in Par­lia­ment, which dis­solved on Tues­day.

Among those present at the meet­ing was Jack Warn­er, who’s been cam­paign­ing for UNC can­di­date Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj (Arou­ca/Lopinot).