KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Scores of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, ahead of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to the Bud­get 2025.

Boo­ing Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters as they ar­rived, the vi­brant crowd called for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be the next prime min­is­ter, as some said they were dis­ap­point­ed with this year’s Bud­get.

The protest last­ed an hour from 9 am to 10 am, with the crowd spend­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the time chant­i­ng “Row­ley must go! Row­ley must go!”, greet­ing Op­po­si­tion mem­bers and wav­ing plac­ards with ex­pres­sions of sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Some pro­test­ers said they were hop­ing to see more done for pub­lic ser­vants, youths and pen­sion­ers.

UNC sup­port­er Dar­ron Daniel, from Ari­ma, said he was dis­ap­point­ed the Gov­ern­ment did not in­crease old age pen­sion.

Daniel said, “The Bud­get was dis­ap­point­ing. I was dis­ap­point­ed to see the per­cent­age they gave to pub­lic ser­vants. That is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able. The peo­ple refuse to ac­cept that of­fer. I didn’t see they men­tioned any­thing about the in­crease for the pen­sion­ers. That is some­thing I think should have been in­creased. I didn’t see any­thing for the youths and I can go on and on.”

Daniel ex­plained why he chose to sup­port the Op­po­si­tion.

“We just de­cid­ed to come to give the po­lit­i­cal leader the full sup­port that she needs at this point be­cause peo­ple are to­tal­ly fed up with this Gov­ern­ment. The coun­try is just get­ting hard­er and hard­er each and every day,” he added.

Pro­test­er Nigel Moses said giv­en the coun­try’s crime prob­lem, he hoped to see plans for more de­ci­sive ac­tion.

“Se­cu­ri­ty and so­cial wel­fare are two is­sues be­ing over­looked by the Gov­ern­ment. Ari­ma has be­come the num­ber one hot spot in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have a lot of mur­ders hap­pen­ing in the Heights of Gua­napo. Crime is un­con­trolled by the TTPS and there’s no in­ter­ven­tion by the Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

“When it comes to so­cial wel­fare, there’s an in­crease in street dwellers. We’re hav­ing teenagers now on the streets of Ari­ma. There’s no sys­tem that is in place to treat with this. It’s al­so a night­mare for pen­sion­ers to get their pen­sion. And that’s why I came out to sup­port the Op­po­si­tion Leader to­day.”

Af­ter greet­ing sup­port­ers yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said the pro­test­ers were echo­ing the com­plaints from the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens in the coun­try fed up and tired with the way the coun­try is be­ing gov­erned.

Mark said, “Cit­i­zens are ex­press­ing their out­rage, their an­guish and their anger. So what we’re see­ing here is a mi­cro­cosm. It’s a typ­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of how the coun­try feels.”