Beckles slams PM’s “lazy, childish, irresponsible posturing”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over her re­cent com­ments on the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, ac­cus­ing her of dam­ag­ing the coun­try’s re­gion­al stand­ing.

In a so­cial me­dia post dat­ed March 26, Beck­les said, “I com­plete­ly con­demn Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's most re­cent rep­re­hen­si­ble at­tack on the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, and her lazy, child­ish, and ir­re­spon­si­ble pos­tur­ing on the is­sue of the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.”

She added, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has demon­strat­ed that she is un­fit to con­tin­ue in the role of Prime Min­is­ter of our na­tion.”

Beck­les warned that the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion could have con­se­quences for cit­i­zens, say­ing, “Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be re­mind­ed that CARI­COM is the sec­ond-largest mar­ket for our goods and ser­vices, and the re­gion­al back­lash she is invit­ing will on­ly hurt the or­di­nary cit­i­zens and work­ers who are al­ready un­der ex­treme pres­sure due to the poli­cies of her UNC gov­ern­ment. We have had enough. #enoughise­nough.”

The Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments fol­low con­fir­ma­tion that heads of gov­ern­ment agreed to the reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing a meet­ing in St Kitts in Feb­ru­ary.

Cari­com chair­man and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew said the “re­quired ma­jor­i­ty” sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion, with Bar­nett’s sec­ond term set to be­gin in Au­gust 2026.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said she does not sup­port the reap­point­ment and in­di­cat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­duce its fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to the re­gion­al body.