Manning: 400 cops for gang war

Promise delivered. To thunderous applause, Prime Minister Patrick Manning yesterday confirmed that all NIS pensioners would be receiving $1,000 from October 1, the start of the fiscal year. Most people who have contributed to NIS collect $400 a month. It therefore means an extra $600 for them come October.

“Too many people have been disadvantaged by this difference between the two pensions — NIS pension and the old age pension — which shall now be harmonised for all time,” Manning stated. “That one is trouble! That one will kill the UNC!” said one enthusiastic  PNMite. At the launch of the PNM’s campaign, the party presented its 126 candidates and Deputy Leader Ken Valley gave highlights of the party’s local government manifesto.

Manning’s address, described by one supporter as “a winner without a penalty” alternated between ‘pelting bois’ and making government policy announcements. He announced  a “formidable action plan” for crime, which involved, among other things, the creation of a “Special Response Unit” to deal with gang-related murders. Four hundred carefully selected persons from the Police Service and Defence Force — whose “careful screening” might include regular polygraph testing, the Prime Minister said. Manning also announced that Government would inject $3 million into the crime stoppers programme to facilitate its  expansion “to every corner of the country.” The new plan also proposes the installation of  surveillance cameras at “strategic locations,” a revision of the management of security licence plates for motor vehicles and the upgrading of the existing coastal radar surveillance system. “We shall not let the criminal elements run rampant in the count and we shall not rest until every citizen enjoys the freedom and security of his life and property,” Manning declared, drawing cheers from the people. It was a good crowd — fairly large for a local government election and very diverse in terms of age and race.

His supporters however didn’t seem to pick up on the allegations of corruption which Manning made against the “dangerous Short Pants Man”, whom he did not name, but who, Manning described as “a main player in InnCogen,” who received $21 million as a finder’s fee. “This very notorious Short Pants Man, deposited very significant sums of money in United States dollars into the foreign account of a former Minister and his wife. You see where your money gone, ladies and gentlemen.  It gone Jersey. My friends, when you learn who that former minister and his wife are, you will be shocked and ashamed. But then you might not be, because I have a feeling you already know who they are,” the prime minister said. His listeners did not offer any names as to the owners of the foreign account.  But the crowd lapped up a lot of the ‘licks’ that Manning shared from the platform. He described the accommodation between the NAR and UNC as a “sunset marriage of the dead and the dying.”  And his rhetoric question — “Who will stoke whose fires in that marriage” — brought the comment “Viagra” from one bard.