Opposition calls on Prime Minister to retract allegations

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw al­le­ga­tions made against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Beck­les said in a state­ment on Face­book:

"Now, as a be­lea­guered Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­sort­ed to her de­fault modus operan­di—ac­cus­ing the PNM of ‘mafia style fi­nanc­ing and pae­dophil­ia’ in the same breath. One won­ders what sto­ry she will con­coct next!"

Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ues to lev­el al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct against the par­ty with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence. She said the state­ments are made when the Op­po­si­tion presents in­for­ma­tion chal­leng­ing claims by the UNC.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ref­er­enced state­ments made in May 2022 in which the Prime Min­is­ter al­leged the ex­is­tence of a pae­dophile ring with­in the PNM and called for a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion. She said no names or ev­i­dence were pro­vid­ed. She al­so cit­ed al­le­ga­tions in 2023 of hu­man traf­fick­ing in­volv­ing PNM of­fi­cials and claims made with­in the past month di­rect­ed at sen­a­tors.

Beck­les said al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing or­gan­ised crime, sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, traf­fick­ing or fi­nan­cial crimes must be sup­port­ed by ev­i­dence and re­ferred to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for in­ves­ti­ga­tion. She said the Con­sti­tu­tion does not per­mit tri­al by po­lit­i­cal plat­form.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said re­peat­ed al­le­ga­tions with­out ev­i­dence un­der­mine na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and af­fect vic­tims of crime.

She added that dur­ing Lent and Ra­madan, cit­i­zens are ob­serv­ing pe­ri­ods of re­flec­tion and na­tion­al dis­course should re­flect re­straint.

Beck­les said the PM must re­tract the state­ments and apol­o­gise.

She said fail­ure to do so should re­sult in res­ig­na­tion from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.