Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go East can­di­date Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy is warn­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans that if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) wins the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion, “we all stand to lose—and lose big.”

In a fiery ad­dress at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Char­lot­teville on Sun­day, Web­ster-Roy told con­stituents the cost of liv­ing would rise, food sup­port would dis­ap­pear, and To­ba­go’s most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens would suf­fer if a UNC gov­ern­ment took of­fice.

“If UNC wins, all of Trinidad and To­ba­go would lose. If UNC wins, it is our econ­o­my and our na­tion­al pride that will de­cline. If UNC wins, it is our chil­dren who are go­ing to suf­fer,” she said, re­fer­ring to the par­ty’s cam­paign song.

Web­ster-Roy claimed ir­re­spon­si­ble eco­nom­ic poli­cies from the UNC would like­ly push the coun­try in­to the hands of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), forc­ing cuts to so­cial pro­grammes.

“The (over) $15 mil­lion in food sup­port to 10,441 To­bag­o­ni­ans—gone. The $503 mil­lion paid to se­nior cit­i­zens in To­ba­go from 2015 to 2025—gone. The $68 mil­lion un­der pub­lic as­sis­tance—gone. The $85 mil­lion in dis­abil­i­ty grants—gone. And the $8.5 mil­lion to sup­port chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties—gone.”

She added: “The first thing the IMF will do is cut so­cial sec­tor spend­ing. So if UNC wins, pic­ture this: your food card—gone.”

She pushed back against Op­po­si­tion claims that mem­bers of par­lia­ment must “go down in Par­lia­ment and make noise,” in­sist­ing in­stead that ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­quires diplo­ma­cy.

“Par­lia­ment is no place to make noise and fight. You catch more flies with hon­ey than vine­gar,” she said. “Since 2015, I’ve been us­ing my charm, my qui­et dis­po­si­tion, and my abil­i­ty to build re­la­tion­ships to bring re­al de­vel­op­ment to To­ba­go East.”

Web­ster-Roy al­so promised more sup­port for fam­i­lies, which in­cludes re­mov­ing Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) from school uni­forms and text­books, in­creas­ing food cards, and re­view­ing the means test to help more vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies.

She al­so vowed that a fu­ture PNM gov­ern­ment would work with non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) to cre­ate a safe house in To­ba­go for women and chil­dren af­fect­ed by do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and in­tro­duce vir­tu­al doc­tor vis­its for se­nior cit­i­zens.

“We are putting our se­nior cit­i­zens at the heart of our ser­vice de­liv­ery. And when we re­turn to gov­ern­ment, we will re­move tax­es from pub­lic sec­tor pen­sions.”