Shamfa: PM must address victimisation claims

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of weak lead­er­ship.

She was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the me­dia about her name and that of the Coun­cil ap­pear­ing on a T&TEC “pro­tect­ed list” dis­closed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day. The Prime Min­is­ter said those list­ed were ex­empt from au­to­mat­ic dis­con­nec­tion even if their bills were un­paid.

At the Coun­cil’s of­fice in Scar­bor­ough, Cud­joe-Lewis dis­missed the list as a dis­trac­tion from more press­ing na­tion­al is­sues.

She said the Prime Min­is­ter need­ed to ex­plain the con­duct of Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath in Par­lia­ment last week. The PNM has called for Padarath to be re­moved from that po­si­tion af­ter he took a pho­to­graph of a par­lia­men­tary staff mem­ber whom he had ac­cused of bias in re­la­tion to the mut­ing of mi­cro­phones.

How­ev­er, Cud­joe-Lewis re­ject­ed claims of bias, say­ing par­lia­men­tary staff are among the most apo­lit­i­cal and pro­fes­sion­al peo­ple she has ever en­coun­tered.

“For you to use your lit­tle seat and wig­gle your way down to that young man — what you tak­ing a pic­ture of the young man for? How is that your busi­ness?

“I think that is what the Prime Min­is­ter needs to tell Trinidad about.”

She said an­oth­er im­por­tant na­tion­al is­sue is the gov­ern­ment’s sur­charge of five cents per kilo­watt-hour for com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers. She urged the pub­lic not to al­low them­selves to be side­tracked.

“That jamish­ness, I will not par­take in that. I will tell you some­thing, I have nev­er asked any­one to put me on any list. I have paid every one of my bills since I be­came a woman.”

She said her bills are usu­al­ly in cred­it and came to the de­fence of her PNM col­leagues, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who post­ed his bill on­line to show he was not in ar­rears.

She al­so claimed mem­bers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly had writ­ten to T&TEC re­quest­ing that the ser­vices of cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als not be dis­con­nect­ed.

Cud­joe-Lewis fur­ther raised con­cerns about al­leged po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion and in­tim­i­da­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.

“You see the in­tim­i­da­tion and the tac­tics that young man had to un­der­go — that is what peo­ple are afraid of.

“I want to call Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar weak. That is weak lead­er­ship. When some­thing like this hap­pens in your gov­ern­ment, you treat with the mat­ter.”

She al­so took aim at UNC sen­a­tors Anil Roberts and Phillip Alexan­der, say­ing they are a re­flec­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter’s lead­er­ship.

“All of those bril­liant minds in the UNC, and you’re telling me the two bright­est you could find are Phillip Alexan­der and Anil Roberts?

“The per­sons that the PM puts in the Sen­ate are based on her dis­cre­tion, so that says a lot about this Prime Min­is­ter. That is weak­ness and that is wot­less­ness.”

Cud­joe-Lewis claimed To­bag­o­ni­ans are al­so com­plain­ing about al­leged po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion with­in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

“There are many con­tract work­ers whose con­tracts were not re­newed be­cause they look like a PNM or some­one told those in pow­er that they are PNM.”

The PNM To­ba­go leader claimed con­tract re­newals with­in the THA are now heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by sec­re­taries.

“That is not the busi­ness of a sec­re­tary, that is the busi­ness of an ad­min­is­tra­tor. I hope ad­min­is­tra­tors are not ab­di­cat­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.”

The for­mer sports min­is­ter not­ed that the THA re­mains the is­land’s largest em­ploy­er amid a fledg­ling pri­vate sec­tor.

“If you lose your job in the THA, there is no place to run if you want to re­main on the is­land. Peo­ple are silent be­cause this is their dai­ly bread.

“There are per­sons who are in par­ty groups say­ing they pre­fer to meet on Zoom be­cause, ‘My car can­not be seen by no PNM of­fice.’

“The vic­tim­i­sa­tion is re­al.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact the Prime Min­is­ter for a re­sponse but re­ceived no re­ply.