Penny calls out Kamla on NGC, LandmarkTT

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must clear the air on what the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny Board was hid­ing from Moody’s cred­it rat­ing agency and the Gov­ern­ment al­so has ques­tions to an­swer to the pub­lic on the Land­mark­TT “web” that was wo­ven.

So said Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ny Beck­les, who called out the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing a speech at the PNM’s Fam­i­ly and Sports Day at Nel­son Man­dela Park, Port-of-Spain.

Train­ing her ver­bal “guns” on the Gov­ern­ment, Beck­les said af­ter dou­bling penal­ties on every­thing from traf­fic fines to al­co­hol prod­ucts, hik­ing NIS con­tri­bu­tions and im­pos­ing land­lord tax, now, “every day is a bac­cha­nal with this Gov­ern­ment…skul­dug­gery and in­com­pe­tence—read the news­pa­pers!”

“We learned re­cent­ly that Moody’s cred­it rat­ing agency was about to down­grade the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny be­cause they were with­hold­ing in­for­ma­tion. So in­stead of pro­vid­ing the in­for­ma­tion, NGC can­celled the con­tract (for Moody’s),” Beck­les claimed.

“The NGC is a unique mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar state-owned com­pa­ny. I want to ask the Prime Min­is­ter, what are they hid­ing at NGC? What is that UNC board afraid of? Lis­ten to what they’re say­ing and to what they’re not say­ing.”

Beck­les con­tin­ued, “Then you have Land­mark­TT. The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), un­der this Gov­ern­ment, has to ex­plain about the award of that $3.4 bil­lion con­tract un­der se­vere scruti­ny by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.

“They told you they were go­ing to build 500 hous­es a week—but how many hous­es has this Gov­ern­ment built to­day since en­ter­ing of­fice. So that web they’re weav­ing—where this one hus­band on a board and this one wife on a board...but don’t wor­ry, every­thing’s go­ing to come out very soon.”

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein didn’t re­spond to queries on Beck­les’ state­ments yes­ter­day.

When news of the Moody’s sit­u­a­tion broke on Fri­day, how­ev­er, NGC claimed this was not due to fi­nan­cial trou­ble but be­cause it had re­aligned its ex­ter­nal cred­it rat­ing agency en­gage­ments af­ter dis­con­tin­u­ing its re­la­tion­ship with Moody’s on Feb­ru­ary 26, 2026.

Al­so slam­ming Gov­er­ment’s crime man­age­ment, Beck­les said, “As soon as they en­tered of­fice, they im­ple­ment­ed a State of Emer­gency to make you be­lieve with that, crime will be no more. Now they’re giv­ing the im­pres­sion that every time there’s an is­sue on crime, they blame the PNM…try­ing to cause dis­trac­tion.

“In Par­lia­ment, they want to blame cer­tain MPs for crime in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies. They’re in Gov­ern­ment re­spon­si­ble for prin­ci­ples and plans to deal with crime, but they have no plan, so they tell you all the crime is from PNM con­stituen­cies. Ab­solute lie! Crime is tak­ing place in every cor­ner.”

Con­demn­ing the “use­less, in­com­pe­tent” Gov­ern­ment, Beck­les said af­ter one year of UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion, cit­i­zens face eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty, ris­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty, a crime wave, cost of liv­ing cri­sis, mas­sive job loss­es, re­sent­ment and frus­tra­tion.

“... And fear of what this Gov­ern­ment would do next. Every day is a new con­tro­ver­sy, fol­lowed by a new ex­cuse and dis­trac­tion. This Gov­ern­ment isn’t just mak­ing un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sions, it reeks of bud­getary ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty!”

Slam­ming the Prime Min­is­ter’s al­le­ga­tion that PNM’s Bal­isi­er House was built on “drug mon­ey,” Beck­les added, “This year will be 64 years since the land where Bal­isi­er House stands was bought. We ent squat­ting, we’re not mov­ing from pil­lar to post. We have a foun­da­tion and struc­ture called PNM, a root called the Bal­isi­er and we have Bal­isi­er House.

“Un­like the UNC, we ent home­less, so she (PM) too farse and out of place! Tell her mind her own busi­ness. Build a house for the UNC, stay out of PNM busi­ness!”

Beck­les said she was proud to fol­low in the foot­steps of PNM lead­ers Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers, Patrick Man­ning and Dr Kei­th Row­ley. She al­so ac­knowl­edged Port-of-Spain North MP Stu­art Young, who she said al­so served as prime min­is­ter.

She said next month would make it a year since she’s served as PNM leader and she has been present and is ready.

“But UNC has a leader and since last year, she’s been in­vis­i­ble to speak to the press, she’s a leader by Tik­Tok, Face­book and In­sta­gram! When she want to talk to me, come run a 5k!”

Beck­les said while every­one want­ed to hear what she would do about PNM Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates—now be­fore Par­lia­ment’s priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee—the UNC has ap­point­ed peo­ple who have ques­tions to an­swer—deputy leader David Lee, Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts (in Life­S­port scan­dal) and oth­ers.

“The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ap­point PNM sen­a­tors is mine. So let Kam­la deal with her prob­lems and de­cide on the ap­point­ment of her sen­a­tors. But if you com­fort­able ap­point­ing those peo­ple with ques­tion­able char­ac­ter­is­tics, leave me alone. When the time comes for me to act as the Con­sti­tu­tion re­quires, I’ll act,” she said.

She al­so re­vealed the par­ty will be­gin screen­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment nom­i­nees from lat­er this month.

Ear­li­er, Beck­les start­ed off the event, themed “Stronger To­geth­er,” but ac­knowl­edg­ing the at­ten­dance of for­mer PNM leader and prime min­is­ter Row­ley, for whom there were huge cheers.

Beck­les thanked the “thou­sands” who at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s event from 41 con­stituen­cies.

“The PNM’s alive! We’re think­ing like war­riors: fo­cused, unit­ed, en­er­getic—ready to re­turn to gov­ern­ment!”

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he was hap­py at the turnout which in­clud­ed mem­bers from UNC-held con­stituen­cies.

At­ten­dees in­clud­ed ex min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. Ab­sent was MP Young, who is over­seas on a pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ment.

On Face­book, how­ev­er, Young wished mem­bers a hap­py day, adding, “Big and spe­cial shout out to Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West … I’m so sor­ry I couldn’t be there to­day as I’m ‘out­side’ ful­fill­ing pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ments.”