Opposition Leader slams PM over Spiritual Baptist claims

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has dis­missed claims by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion failed to sup­port the Spir­i­tu­al/Shouter Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty, de­clar­ing that “talk is cheap.”

Speak­ing at the PNM’s Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion cel­e­bra­tion at the par­ty’s con­stituen­cy of­fice in Point Fortin on Sat­ur­day, Beck­les said there has been State sup­port for the faith through bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions and land grants.

How­ev­er, ref­er­enc­ing state­ments made in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, she said the Prime Min­is­ter al­leged that the “PNM did noth­ing for the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty.”

“Talk is cheap. The Prime Min­is­ter en­tered the Par­lia­ment around min­utes to six. Par­lia­ment start­ed at 1.30 pm and, of course, came in that time to gallery her­self, and to say what the UNC did for the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists.”

Beck­les re­mind­ed those gath­ered of ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en by the PNM, in­clud­ing land al­lo­ca­tion for key projects.

“In 2019, un­der the PNM, land was al­lo­cat­ed in Cou­va for the con­struc­tion of a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Cathe­dral and ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex and a her­itage park. In March 2025, just last year and ex­act­ly one year ago, the sum of $20 mil­lion was hand­ed to the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty.”

Not­ing that it has been 75 years since the re­peal of the Shouter Bap­tist Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance, which had em­pow­ered po­lice to raid homes with­out war­rants, she said, “Re­mind­ing you of some­thing they want to do these days? The ZOSO. But broth­ers and sis­ters, the law was re­pealed be­cause be­fore us they stood up, re­sist­ed and en­dured.

“Like Dr Er­ic Williams, be as­sured that I will fight with every fi­bre of my be­ing to pro­tect you, es­pe­cial­ly from this wicked, vin­dic­tive, dic­ta­to­r­i­al and op­pres­sive Gov­ern­ment.”

She fur­ther claimed that new forms of sup­pres­sion are tak­ing shape.

“Dig­i­tal ha­rass­ment, or­gan­ised mis­in­for­ma­tion... But as I said be­fore, his­to­ry teach­es us that re­silience al­ways wins.”

In a mes­sage yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith was “forged in strug­gle, strength­ened through per­se­cu­tion, and sus­tained by un­wa­ver­ing de­vo­tion to God,” not­ing that fol­low­ers were once ha­rassed, fined, and im­pris­oned for wor­ship­ping.

“The re­peal of that Or­di­nance was not mere­ly a le­gal mile­stone. It was a moral vic­to­ry and it was a de­c­la­ra­tion that faith can­not be si­lenced, that dig­ni­ty can­not be leg­is­lat­ed away, and that the hu­man spir­it, when an­chored in be­lief, will al­ways over­come.”

Beck­les paid trib­ute to fig­ures such as El­ton Grif­fith and Tubal Uri­ah ‘Buzz’ But­ler, say­ing their lead­er­ship and courage helped safe­guard and el­e­vate the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith.

She al­so point­ed to a younger gen­er­a­tion of Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment across ed­u­ca­tion, busi­ness, pub­lic ser­vice and com­mu­ni­ty work.

How­ev­er, Beck­les said the an­niver­sary must al­so prompt re­flec­tion on cur­rent na­tion­al is­sues, warn­ing that “the lessons of 1917 are not con­fined to the past.”

PNM vows to re­claim Point Fortin seat

Speak­ing on Sat­ur­day, the Op­po­si­tion leader al­so sought to re­as­sure sup­port­ers fol­low­ing the PNM’s loss of the Point Fortin seat in last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, ex­press­ing con­fi­dence that the con­stituen­cy would be re­gained.

“For those of you who may have been a lit­tle weary and you vot­ed for the UNC, and they are in Gov­ern­ment to­day. Let me just say to you, don’t get weary.

“We have lo­cal elec­tions com­ing up soon, fol­lowed lat­er by gen­er­al elec­tions. We want to en­sure that the Bor­ough of Point Fortin re­turns to the PNM.

“We want to en­sure that when­ev­er that gen­er­al elec­tion bell is rung, you will again have a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment from the PNM for Point Fortin.”

Turn­ing to de­vel­op­ment plans, Beck­les de­scribed Point Fortin as a crit­i­cal hub in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor and praised its Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions as among the most vi­brant in the coun­try.

She not­ed that the PNM el­e­vat­ed the Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions to na­tion­al fes­ti­val sta­tus last year.

She promised that a fu­ture PNM gov­ern­ment with her as prime min­is­ter would pro­vide a ded­i­cat­ed fi­nan­cial sub­ven­tion through the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the es­tab­lish­ment of a Point Fortin Cul­tur­al Cen­tre.

Ad­dress­ing ed­u­ca­tion, she cit­ed re­ports point­ing to de­clin­ing stu­dent en­gage­ment, cur­ricu­lum mis­match­es with work­force needs and gaps in tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, pledg­ing cur­ricu­lum re­form.

She added that a fu­ture PNM gov­ern­ment would al­so pri­ori­tise in­dus­tri­al re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion, sup­port for small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es, skills train­ing, youth and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and in­fra­struc­tur­al in­vest­ment in Point Fortin. Plans al­so in­clude re­in­stat­ing the Youth Home­stead Agri­cul­tur­al Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme and oth­er ini­tia­tives which were dis­con­tin­ued by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.