Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion must say if it in­tends to launch a 25 per cent “in­her­i­tance tax” on ben­e­fi­cia­ries of de­ceased per­sons, says UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar who’s al­so re­vealed her par­ty has start­ed talks with oth­er small­er par­ties to fight the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

Speak­ing at last night’s Mon­day Night Re­port at the SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege in San­gre Grande, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "Tonight, I have to warn you that worse is yet to come. The prop­er­ty tax is on­ly the be­gin­ning. The Row­ley PNM plans on im­pos­ing a 25 per cent in­her­i­tance tax on cit­i­zens - is this true?

"I've been in­formed of this and I call on the PNM to come clean to the coun­try about this 25 per cent in­her­i­tance tax. How long has the Gov­ern­ment been hav­ing dis­cus­sions about im­ple­ment­ing this on the pop­u­la­tion?

"An in­her­i­tance tax is a tax that you pay when you re­ceive mon­ey or prop­er­ty from the es­tate of a de­ceased per­son. Un­like an es­tate tax, the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the mon­ey or prop­er­ty is re­spon­si­ble for pay­ing the tax, not the es­tate."

"The Gov­ern­ment will es­tab­lish a thresh­old val­ue un­der which no in­her­i­tance tax will ap­ply. Once that thresh­old val­ue is sur­passed the in­her­i­tance tax will be ap­plied. So, when you die and you leave mon­ey or prop­er­ty for your chil­dren, they are go­ing to have to pay a 25 per cent tax on the val­ue above the thresh­old amount - is this true?

"They go­ing to tax you even when you dead .. The PNM must scrap the prop­er­ty tax and we're to­tal­ly against an in­her­i­tance tax," Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed, show­ing a video of the PNM’s 2015 man­i­festo launch where then Op­po­si­tion leader Row­ley de­nied the PNM would bring back prop­er­ty tax.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC had a tremen­dous screen­ing ex­er­cise last week.

“So many peo­ple came out, bright young peo­ple, many women - the UNC’s fu­ture is brighter than ever,” she said.

She said there is a per­cent­age of peo­ple who feel their vote won’t mat­ter and the PNM won’t work for such peo­ple, but the UNC is the on­ly par­ty where they would feel wel­come.

“Tonight, I say let’s unite and come to­geth­er to re­move this wicked Row­ley Gov­ern­ment!” she said.

“We’ve been hold­ing dis­cus­sions with oth­er groups and we’ll be­gin fur­ther dis­cus­sions in com­ing weeks with any one of the small­er par­ties who are will­ing to fight the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion to­geth­er with the UNC as a unit­ed force.”

She said if the UNC can achieve this and work to­geth­er over the next two years, the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion will be the first step to re­mov­ing the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “At least two small­er par­ties have ap­proached us. Some of my se­nior mem­bers have be­gun dis­cus­sions with them. If we can come to an agree­ment in time for this Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion, we’ll fight as a unit­ed force.

“But I’m draw­ing a line in the sand – I will not tol­er­ate any dis­re­spect to UNC mem­bers from any­one who wants to come for­ward to work with us.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC can fight alone but will have dis­cus­sions and then make a de­ci­sion to go for­ward.

”I have to do this - the pain to­day of see­ing my con­stituents and many oth­ers flood­ed out is just too much to bear,” she said of those af­fect­ed by flood­ing in south Trinidad yes­ter­day.

She said chil­dren had ex­ams yes­ter­day, yet the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry wasn’t on hand to tell them if they couldn’t reach school, they’d get a fair chance to write the ex­ams.

She said some may feel the UNC should “run this thing alone …, of course, the UNC can run it alone and we will if we have to. But what a joy­ful noise we’d make un­to the Lord if we all come to­geth­er unit­ed to fight this wicked gov­ern­ment!”

“If we can achieve work for this Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, that's a step one to­wards the fi­nal step to re­move the PNM," she said.

She added, "Who vex loss. I will not al­low the UNC to de­scend again in­to a par­ty of class, caste, fam­i­ly dy­nasty and so­cial sta­tus. I re­main here to pro­tect the chil­dren of the rank and file – the ones I pro­mot­ed ... I’ll de­fend my chil­dren to death and af­ter we win this Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion and next step the gen­er­al elec­tions, whether we do it unit­ed or alone, one of them, chil­dren of the UNC, will lead our par­ty and I’ll be able to rest.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, "Some­times I say I’m tired - the fight nev­er ends, the push­back is so tremen­dous as the PNM is so bent on hold­ing on."

Not­ing the PNM’s “dom­i­na­tion by the dol­lar,” she urged, “Don’t sell your soul for ‘30 pieces of sil­ver’."

Mean­while, San­gre Grande chair­man Anil Juter­am list­ed ar­eas achieve­ments, in­clud­ing nam­ing a road af­ter LM­CS div­er Yus­suf Hen­ry, who died in the Paria pipeline in 2022.

MP Rod­ney Charles al­so al­leged PNM is "buy­ing out" peo­ple for elec­tion.

"PNM has a huge war chest. Some say ap­proach­ing $400 mil­lion ... They're of­fer­ing hun­dreds of thou­sand dol­lars, even mil­lions de­pend­ing on what val­ue you can bring ... Look out for roads be­ing paved, 'ten days,' ham­pers and mon­ey wrapped up in jer­seys. Take their mon­ey and vote dem out!"