Penny, political parties blast PM over ‘lawless dump’ remark

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties have tak­en strong ex­cep­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter de­scrib­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a “law­less dump”.

PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar used the phrase to jus­ti­fy a sharp in­crease in traf­fic fines and cus­toms du­ties, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try had slipped in­to a state of dis­or­der due to “en­ti­tled at­ti­tudes” of cit­i­zens who ig­nore laws.

How­ev­er, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has de­scribed the re­mark as “dis­taste­ful” and “un­be­com­ing” of a prime min­is­ter, ar­gu­ing that it amounts to a rep­re­hen­si­ble in­sult to the very coun­try Per­sad-Bisses­sar calls home.

Fur­ther­more, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les claimed that the term “law­less dump” is bet­ter used to de­scribe the mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment.

In a me­dia re­lease, Beck­les wrote, “In­stead of pro­mot­ing en­force­ment, re­form­ing in­sti­tu­tions, or ad­dress­ing the re­al caus­es of crime, this Gov­ern­ment is choos­ing to pun­ish cit­i­zens through high­er fines and fees. Hard-work­ing Trin­bag­o­ni­ans are not crim­i­nals, and the coun­try’s lead­er­ship should nev­er speak down to the peo­ple it serves.”

She added, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be re­mem­bered as the Prime Min­is­ter of tax­a­tion, one who at­tempt­ed to gov­ern through fear, threats, in­sults, and bul­ly­ing of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Oth­er PNM of­fi­cials joined in con­demn­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks.

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga wrote on Face­book, “What is most trou­bling is not just the lan­guage, which should be con­demned in and of it­self, but what it ac­tu­al­ly re­veals to any­one who cares to look just past the at­tempt to grab head­lines in­stead of gov­ern. If the coun­try is “law­less”, then the ques­tions cit­i­zens are ask­ing are sim­ple. Who is re­spon­si­ble for law and or­der now?”

Deputy PNM leader San­jiv Bood­hu al­so shared news­pa­per ar­ti­cles high­light­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in­volv­ing UNC politi­cians.

Bood­hu shared ar­ti­cles that stat­ed, “Cops probe for­mer sports min­is­ter over $400m Life Sport, Mooni­lal faces fresh al­le­ga­tions in EM­BD law­suit, Min­is­ter David Lee re-ar­rest­ed on fraud charges, Pres­i­dent Writes to PM: Ex­plain Sec­tion 34.”

Mean­while, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front is call­ing on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ad­dress the na­tion if she tru­ly be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go is a “law­less dump”.

Par­ty leader Mick­ela Pan­day is chal­leng­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to ex­plain how what she de­scribes as years of failed gov­er­nance can now be blamed on the cit­i­zen­ry.

In a post to Face­book, Pan­day wrote, “Madam Prime Min­is­ter, our peo­ple are not the prob­lem; they are the back­bone of this coun­try, keep­ing it func­tion­ing de­spite re­peat­ed po­lit­i­cal fail­ures. Pa­tri­o­tism means de­fend­ing the na­tion and its peo­ple, not de­mean­ing and blam­ing them to jus­ti­fy fines, tax­es and the ab­sence of re­al re­form.”

Pan­day added, “That is why there is some­thing cal­lous and cal­cu­lat­ed, a kind of gov­er­nance by am­bush, in rais­ing fines, fees and tolls with­out de­bate, with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and with­out hon­esty, qui­et­ly slipped out on Christ­mas Day and timed to take ef­fect at the start of a new year, when house­holds are al­ready stretched to the lim­it.”

Pan­day be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter has erod­ed pub­lic trust by cam­paign­ing on the promise of re­duc­ing traf­fic fines and then dou­bling them on her first Christ­mas Day in of­fice.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader be­lieves this is a bla­tant rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing ini­tia­tive.

“If road safe­ty were tru­ly the pri­or­i­ty, re­forms would have been an­nounced open­ly, not smug­gled in via Christ­mas Day le­gal no­tices.”

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al post­ed on Face­book, “So you call us a law­less dump and want the UAE, UK and oth­er for­eign coun­tries to in­vest in T&T? Make it make sense, nah!”

In To­ba­go the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) did not is­sue a state­ment, but the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) did.

The par­ty led by Dr Denise Tsoifatt-An­gus said it was the Prime Min­is­ter her­self who has “nor­malised” law­less­ness.

“Dis­re­spect for the Con­sti­tu­tion is law­less. Dis­re­spect for the peo­ple of To­ba­go is law­less. Sup­port­ing state vi­o­lence with­out ev­i­dence, due process, or ac­count­abil­i­ty is law­less. Killing peo­ple at sea and call­ing it se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy is law­less. And yet, she en­dors­es it. This is not about “bad cit­i­zens”. This is about bad gov­er­nance,” the IDA leader said via a me­dia re­lease.

Dr Tsoifatt-An­gus al­so asked, “Who are they (the Gov­ern­ment) try­ing to fool?”

“In op­po­si­tion they vi­cious­ly at­tacked in­creased penal­ties for ve­hic­u­lar of­fences. Now that she’s in charge, she im­ple­ments in­creas­es larg­er than those she crit­i­cised.”

The IDA leader added, “The in­creas­es in fines are re­al­ly meant to be a rev­enue gen­er­a­tor. If de­ter­rence were the true goal, then dras­ti­cal­ly im­proved de­tec­tion through the use of cam­eras, etc., would be far more ef­fec­tive and, iron­i­cal­ly, would prob­a­bly re­sult in high­er re­turns.”