Young calls out PM over comments on public servants

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of hypocrisy over her state­ments about pub­lic ser­vants.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Young took aim at Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks dur­ing Mon­day’s 2027 Bud­get de­bate, in­clud­ing her threat to ter­mi­nate lazy pub­lic ser­vants,

“Kam­la, look in the mir­ror and fire your­self for lazi­ness. When, in the last 19 months, have you gone to work at any Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter? When last have you held a press con­fer­ence in­stead of play­ing un­hinged key­board war­rior?” Young asked.

He added: “When have you ac­tu­al­ly worked a full sev­en-day work week in the pub­lic glare in­stead of chill­ing and hid­ing out at home? Spare us your ‘bad john ole talk’ and hypocrisy and try work­ing a full work week in­stead of threat­en­ing every­one who doesn’t kiss your ring.”

Young’s com­ments came amid his wider crit­i­cism of what he de­scribed as a si­mul­ta­ne­ous at­tack by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment on cit­i­zens through its “de­fi­cient and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry” poli­cies and on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) through threats and hints of in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to its MPs.

He crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s state­ments about po­ten­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to mat­ters aris­ing dur­ing the PNM’s tenure.

Young dis­missed the claims, de­scrib­ing it as an at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion.