While an Op­po­si­tion MP ques­tioned the im­pact rais­ing the re­tire­ment age would have on the coun­try’s youth, To­co/San­gre Grande MP de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment and even likened Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to St Michael the Archangel.

Dur­ing de­bate on the 2022/2023 Bud­get yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion MP for Barataria/San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein claimed rais­ing the re­tire­ment age will sti­fle the chances for youths in Trinidad and To­ba­go, who will have to wait un­til some­one ei­ther dies or re­tires to get a job,

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment, he de­mand­ed the Gov­ern­ment look af­ter youths.

“Now (Gov­ern­ment) wants to in­crease the re­tire­ment age to 65. Do you un­der­stand the ef­fects of that? You have young peo­ple who have de­grees and can­not get a job be­cause there are no va­can­cies. Now, they will have to ei­ther wait un­til some­one dies or they re­tire to get a job.

“In­creas­ing the re­tire­ment age will on­ly sti­fle the chances of youth in T&T. You in­di­cat­ed you want to in­crease the re­tire­ment age as the NIS fund may not be able to sus­tain, but why must young peo­ple suf­fer for your mis­man­age­ment of the NIB? You’re mak­ing it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for young peo­ple to want to stay in T&T - give the young peo­ple a chance!”

Ho­sein pre­dict­ed taxi fares would raise, yet he said a Gov­ern­ment MP said a “coal pot and bi­cy­cle are the an­swers. It’s cheap­er to fly to To­ba­go than fill your gas tank now.”

Ho­sein al­so claimed health work­ers haven’t been told when they would get the promised bonus or ex­act­ly how much they would each re­ceive. He slammed the Gov­ern­ment on crime man­age­ment and queried the pol­i­cy for the 16,000 Venezue­lans who mi­grat­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go and have chil­dren here.

“Will they be sent back, Gov­ern­ment will face mas­sive lit­i­ga­tion on this.”

Say­ing Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who is al­so Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, is a peo­ple’s per­son, Ho­sein added that she was seen mak­ing roti and pluck­ing a chick­en by the road­side.

“Will she vote for this bud­get?”

Ho­sein said he saw a man out­side Par­lia­ment last week with a plac­ard stat­ing “Im­bert HYMC.” Ho­sein added, “I’m sure it meant ‘Im­bert How You Man­ag­ing the Coun­try’.”

Munroe: PM like an archangel

MP for To­co/San­gre Grande Roger Munroe said Ho­sein on­ly al­lud­ed to Beck­les, but oth­er Gov­ern­ment MPs in­clud­ing him­self are al­so “peo­ple per­sons.”

Munroe, who ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of in­cit­ing peo­ple to protest, said he lis­tened to Op­po­si­tion MPs and heard on­ly neg­a­tive words in­clud­ing “ri­ot”, “protest” and “bru­talise peo­ple.”

“But we’re not in any war or sep­a­ra­tion or di­vi­sion. We don’t wake up one day and de­cide to pres­sure cit­i­zens,” he said.

Munroe likened Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to “St Michael, the de­fend­er Archangel” and said he had the coun­try’s best in­ter­est at heart. Munroe al­so de­tailed im­prove­ments in wa­ter, road ex­ten­sion and oth­er things be­ing done in his con­stituen­cy, as he called on the Op­po­si­tion’s Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir to en­sure the UNC-led San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion al­so did the right thing.

Munroe al­so de­fend­ed sev­er­al min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, whom he said may some­times be a man of firm words.

“But to be a man you have to stand up firm,” Munroe added.