Panday: UNC will not support re-introduction of Police Bills

"If they had listened to me one year ago when I insisted that the Government should have introduced constitutional reform, today the Police Reform Bills would have been passed," according to Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday.

"It would have been passed with constitutional guarantees that would prevent the PNM from arresting and locking up the Opposition," he said.

Panday was addressing the crowd at the Monday night UNC forum at the Orange Valley Community Centre. Other speakers were Kamla Persad-Bissessar (Siparia), Kelvin Ramnath (Couva South) and Senator Wade Mark.

Panday stressed that "Constitutional reform does not mean appointing a committee and asking them to change wherefore into whereas, in this clause and that clause and putting a full stop here and a comma there." He said, "That is not constitutional reform.

Reform must deal with the problems in the society like racism, discrimination, the abuse of power, injustice, and the inequity that pervades the country. That is what the Constitution must do."

He said he did not intend to support any legislation that would put more power into the hands of the PNM Government.

The UNC leader then emphasised, "I would rather die than live like a third class citizen in my own country." In dealing with crime, Panday said Government was part of the problem and, it had no answer, and was clueless in handling the situation.

Panday said Government had more money now to acquire the resources to fight crime, than the UNC had when it was in office, but the criminals were obviously outsmarting the police and shifting their operations cleverly to beat whatever strategy was being employed.

Panday said that according to the Prime Minister, there was a political dimension to crime and "he better explain what this means as it clearly shows that the PNM was giving money to drug pushers to bring in drugs into the country to carry on the drug business." Of course, he said, they would be blaming Panday for the drug situation in the country.

The UNC leader stressed that there were 104 murders in the country up to yesterday, and that meant a murder every 26 hours. At that rate, he said there would be some 300 murders in Trinidad and Tobago by the year’s end.

Panday said that the Prime Minister wanted to bring back capital punishment but he should know that it is the law of the land and it already exists. Panday said the PNM Government spent over $90 billion and they had nothing to show for it, "and for that the people of the country will not forget them," he declared.