Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the Dr Keith Rowley-led administration has been running the country on dead auto pilot for the past six months.
“You know there is something called the WWF champion, it is called the wedding, wakes and funeral champion. I think that is what Mr Rowley and his Government, especially Mr Rowley, is being seen as, witnessed as, the WWF champion,” she said on Saturday night.
She said while absolutely nothing is happening in the country and people are losing their jobs, Rowley and his Cabinet were attending the wedding of the daughter of a government minister.
“I don’t know how much of that is at taxpayers’ expense,” she added.
Rowley has said that it was purely by coincidence that last weekend’s cabinet retreat and the wedding of Health Minister Terrance Deyalsingh’s daughter took place at the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort in Tobago on the same weekend.
Persad-Bissessar made the comments following a meeting with former cane farmers in Barrackpore on Saturday, as she gave reporters her views on the status of the $7.2 billion Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin, which has been at a standstill since last year.
Over the last two months, contractors and workers have been protesting over money owed to them by Brazilian construction firm OAS Construtora. When the Opposition leader asked about the highway status in Parliament recently, she recalled they were told that it was under review.
“As you realise that is the typical answer, everything is on review. In the meantime everything is at a standstill, in a state of auto pilot. It is really troubling.
“Monday will mark the six months of the present Government and in that six months we have seen absolutely no work being done,” Persad-Bissessar said.
“We have seen jobs being lost...to put it in another way, internally, we are seeing Rowley government imploding internally and we are seeing an explosion in the crime rate in the country with the economy on standstill.” She said she has been relatively quiet because she wanted to give the Government a chance to the do the work.
“But I think it has been a total disappointment.
“In fact, in the lives of some persons it has been not just disappointing but chaotic and traumatic for those families where jobs are being lost and we see plants and infrastructure standing by idle with nothing happening, which is UWI campus being left there, the maintenance cost alone for that, the Couva Children’s Hospital, projects that were complete, the sports facilities.
“All of these would have assisted with what is known as other ways of gaining revenue, the revenue stream is down from the oil and gas. These were the projects that would have brought in revenue outside the oil and gas.”
She said she was very concerned with the situation and intends to raise her voice now that the honeymoon period was over. “For six months the country is on dead auto pilot status, to restart now is going to take even further time.”
Asked if the Government could pay the cane farmers given the low oil prices, she said the money was allocated and budgeted in the estimate of expenditure and part of the money was given by the European Union. Before their election defeat last year, she said government had in July paid $27 million to the former cane farmers.
She said the cane farmers were supposed to be paid two other tranches in December 2015 and this year, but Rowley has refused to pay them. “The priorities of the Government are totally distorted when it comes to helping the more vulnerable people in society.
“Their priority is talking about building a beach at the Magdalena Hotel, their priority is to talk about the Brian Lara Stadium, their priority is on the vanity projects of all these old buildings in Port-of-Spain,” she said, adding that while those projects are important, right now they should not be the Government’s focus since they will not generate income.
...to march on PM’s office with cane farmers
Supported by Opposition members and their attorneys, cane farmers will on Wednesday march to the Prime Minister’s Office in Port-of-Spain to deliver a pre-action protocol letter on a promised $103 million payment to them.
Calling on ex-cane farmers to unite, mobilise and gather in St Clair at 2 pm, former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told them the Government was obligated in law to pay them the money during a meeting at the Cumuto Recreation Ground, Barrackpore, on Saturday night. The meeting was chaired by Association of Combined Cane Farmers Association chairman Balram Ramdial.
It was under her administration that Cabinet had approved $130 million in compensation for cane farmers to be used for agricultural diversification. The farmers received $27 million last July, two months prior to the Persad-Bissessar’s administration’s general elections defeat. The rest of the money was promised in two other tranches—$75 million in December 2015 and $28 million this year.
Saying that Dr Keith Rowley has refused to pay the money based on legal advice, she said: “Something must be done. We cannot allow a person who came into an election campaign and promised to pay you publicly, we cannot allow him to confuse the issue and really confuffle the issue to say that he will not pay you. Because he is obligated in law and the Government is obligated in law because of the steps we took.”