Imbert dismisses UNC ‘fantasies’

Imbert issued this condemnation prior to the approval of the report of the Standing Finance Committee and the Finance Bill 2017 in the House of Representatives at 12.48 am yesterday. The Senate will debate the Finance Bill on Monday.

Bringing the debate “back to its moorings,” Imbert said it was “shameful” that the Opposition engaged in fiction rather than deal with the facts contained in the report.

He said one of those facts was an increased funding to the Parliament to implement free medical care for Opposition MPs. He said from 2012 to 2015, former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her administration “suppressed” a medical plan that would have assisted then opposition PNM parliamentarians.

Imbert said former government ministers had free medical care and they, “used it for strange purposes.” He said this funding would also help Opposition parliamentarians to run their constituency offices and attend overseas conferences. “I thought they would want to debate that, “the minister quipped.

Imbert thought the Opposition would have accounted to TT about the $500 million contract the PP executed with Chinese company Huawei for telecommunications services. He thought the Opposition would want to tell the public about why the PNM is paying $18,563,000 under the National Security Ministry to settle an outstanding debt incurred by the PP to the Harris Corporation for a digital telecommunication system.

Imbert thought the Opposition would account for a $1.5 billion loan the PP took out under the Housing Development Corporation (HDC)before the September 2015 general elections.

He said the Government is now paying $296 million to pay for that loan. Imbert thought the Opposition would talk about increased funding to the Service Commissions, Servol and the Accredituation Council, which the Standing Finance Committee approved. The committee includes all 41 MPs in the House.

He thought the approval of $196 million for the Health Ministry to purchase medical supplies was something which mattered to the Opposition. “Those are the facts not the fantasy I have had to listen to all night,” Imbert declared.

He continued, “All they did for the last two days is try to buss mark.” Imbert reminded Persad-Bissessar that a procurement oversight committee under her former administration, headed by former Senate president Timothy Hamel-Smith, was actually doing what she was accusing the Government of doing with respect to selecting a procurement regulator. He said these facts are borne out in a July 2015 document.