Beckles criticises lack of consultation as PM attends Trump summit

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has raised con­cerns about what she de­scribes as a lack of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­sul­ta­tion af­ter re­veal­ing that the Op­po­si­tion was not en­gaged ahead of to­day’s Shields of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is at­tend­ing the meet­ing with Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana are the on­ly Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) mem­bers in­vit­ed, along­side sev­er­al Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly re­vealed that the in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the 50th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing held in Bas­seterre, St Kitts and Nevis, on Feb­ru­ary 25.

Beck­les said the ab­sence of con­sul­ta­tion re­flects what she de­scribed as a con­tin­u­ing pat­tern of lim­it­ed en­gage­ment be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion, even as she main­tains that co­op­er­a­tion re­mains pos­si­ble on key na­tion­al is­sues.

“When I took my oath, I made it very clear about our will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate, you know, to work with the Gov­ern­ment as it re­lates to leg­is­la­tion. And I main­tain my po­si­tion that we all know that the coun­try ex­pects the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion to work to­geth­er, es­pe­cial­ly in ar­eas as it re­lates to crime. And I am still main­tain­ing my po­si­tion as it re­lates to my will­ing­ness to work with the Gov­ern­ment.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader stressed that her par­ty re­mains pre­pared to sup­port leg­is­la­tion it be­lieves serves the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

“We are will­ing to sup­port good leg­is­la­tion. And we ex­pect that the Gov­ern­ment will recog­nise that we have the right to crit­i­cise, we have the right to rec­om­mend, we have the right to rep­re­sent our con­stituents as the le­gal Op­po­si­tion.”

De­spite her con­cerns about the lack of con­sul­ta­tion, Beck­les said she is await­ing the out­come of the dis­cus­sions in Flori­da.