UNC never interested in prison reform

RAMESH LAWRENCE MAHARAJ said despite his best efforts as Attorney-General, he failed to convince the former United National Congress (UNC) government to reintegrate freed prisoners into society  to reduce crime in Trinidad and Tobago. Addressing a meeting of the National Workers Action Committee in Arima on Saturday, Maharaj recalled that as AG he tried to get the Basdeo Panday administration to use former prisoner Wayne Chance’s Vision on Mission (VOM) initiative to reintegrate recently released prisoners back into society. “I tried to get the government interested in it. I couldn’t get through,” he lamented. Maharaj however said he saw the public benefit to be derived from VOM and pressed ahead despite the apparent indifference of his former Cabinet colleagues. “I found a way in the (Legal Affairs) Ministry that, normally you may not be able to do this, but I found a way in which it would conform with the objectives of my Ministry. I provided him and his group with  assistance to start the group VOM. Look what his group has done while other people assist him in saving the lives of a lot of people in Trinidad and Tobago,” he declared to lusty applause from the gathering.

Reiterating his condemnation of the UNC and PNM’s stance on corruption, Maharaj declared: “What is happening is that they ride your back and when they get into office they forget you.  Past government officials and present government officials who could not earn the wealth by the salaries that they got or what they had before, they own very expensive properties in Trinidad and Tobago.” The former AG claimed several of these individuals now own properties in a major real estate development in Tobago where the cost of a single villa is US$1.5 million.  Maharaj said politics mattered little to him at this time and he was committed to a crusade to bring social justice to all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.