PM stands firm on tough stance

Un­de­terred by sharp crit­i­cism from po­lit­i­cal ri­vals, the Prime Min­is­ter has dou­bled down on her de­scrip­tion of the coun­try as a “law­less dump”, in­sist­ing the re­mark was in­tend­ed to con­front harsh re­al­i­ties and ul­ti­mate­ly up­lift the na­tion.

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said push­back from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) over her choice of words on­ly high­lights what she de­scribed as the par­ty’s lack of am­bi­tion for its sup­port­ers. She main­tained that she would not low­er her stan­dards, in­sist­ing that her re­marks are in­tend­ed to up­lift the coun­try and se­cure the best out­comes for Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

The Prime Min­is­ter made the re­mark on Sun­day while de­fend­ing high­er traf­fic fines and cus­toms du­ties, blam­ing what she called “en­ti­tled at­ti­tudes” and wide­spread dis­re­gard for the law.

In jus­ti­fy­ing her choice of words, the Prime Min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, “You can’t fix the prob­lems in the coun­try if you don’t face the re­al­i­ty and say, ‘This is bro­ken, that is dys­func­tion­al, and we need to make changes to im­prove.’”

She added, “If the PNM has no am­bi­tion for their sup­port­ers, so be it, but I want the best for UNC sup­port­ers and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.”

In her re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, the Prime Min­is­ter said she was ab­solute­ly fine with the PNM dis­agree­ing with her state­ment; how­ev­er, she said that speaks vol­umes about the Op­po­si­tion.

“The PNM has nev­er cared about their own sup­port­ers. A sim­ple ex­am­ple is that the Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin cor­po­ra­tions have funds to pick up garbage in cer­tain spe­cial ar­eas but leave the garbage to pile up in the streets in their sup­port­ers’ ar­eas. That’s the PNM for you, hate­ful to their own peo­ple.”

The PM con­tin­ued, “Hard­core PNM con­stituen­cies have the high­est mur­der and crime rates, high­est un­em­ploy­ment, poor­est in­fra­struc­ture and worst ed­u­ca­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties and out­comes. I don’t want any con­stituen­cy to be like that and will do every­thing pos­si­ble to up­lift UNC and PNM sup­port­ers and all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to make their lives bet­ter.”

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter said the in­creased road traf­fic fines, cus­toms du­ties, Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route charges, and high­er birth and death reg­is­tra­tion fees are in­tend­ed to pro­mote eq­ui­ty and fair­ness na­tion­wide.

“Why should a teacher from Ma­yaro pay tax­es to sub­sidise the main­te­nance or op­er­a­tion of the bus route when he doesn’t use it? If you use the bus route, you should pay for it, not some­one else. Why should a po­lice of­fi­cer from Paramin pay tax­es to sub­sidise birth cer­tifi­cates when he has no chil­dren? If you make chil­dren, you should pay to reg­is­ter them. Why should some­one else have to pay for your child? Why should a nurse pay tax­es to sub­sidise cus­toms fees for a busi­ness­man? If you are im­port­ing goods to sell to make a prof­it, you should pay the fees, in­stead of some­one else’s tax­es pay­ing it for you.”

The PM said it was time for “every pot to stand on its own bot­tom”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar again sought to re­mind mem­bers of the pub­lic that they are free to do what they want.

“The state of emer­gency is not re­strict­ing any­one. Feel free to dri­ve reck­less­ly and kill your­self if you want, feel free to en­cour­age your chil­dren to smoke gan­ja and drink rum if you want, feel free to mash up and burn down the place if you want.”