East Indians not stupid people

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday must feel Indian people are very stupid, Planning Minister Dr Keith Rowley charged yesterday.

Stating that East Indian people had rejected the Opposition Leader’s call to make  “jail” and to create “mayhem and racial discord,” Rowley stated: “If Basdeo Panday wanted to make a jail, let him do so by  himself.” Rowley, speaking in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives, said he was so happy that the East Indian population had chosen to ignore Panday’s “exhortation to rise up and burn down the country. Because that is what they (the UNC) want..to incite the East Indian population, ...and to stoke racial fires,” he said. He said while the Prime Minister and the PNM Government were offering the people of this country a vision and a bright future based on the promise of our natural resources,  the Opposition Leader was offering his supporters jail. Quoting from a Newsday article, Rowley noted that Panday was calling on his supporters to “join him” in going “to prison in (batches of) 300, 400, 500 every day” and for every 500 jailed, another 500 must come.

Rowley slammed Panday for “personalising” the “ministerial actions” of Agriculture Minister John Rahael, stating: “If this was a different country, the minister couldn’t walk the streets. But our people are smarter than that, whether they are Indian, Chinese, Tobagonian.” Rowley’s contribution was punctuated by loud desk-thumping. Noting that the UNC was calling for fiscal prudence, and in the same breath chiding Government for taking action on Caroni, Rowley said Caroni, which had a deficit of $1.1 billion, had loans written off of $2 billion and which had soaked up $5 billion in government subsidies, was a challenge since its  inception. Rowley also slammed Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar for coming to Parliament with a “tissue of lies.” He said her allegation about a lottery system for the placement of children in the SEA exams was deliberately designed to ferment “disquiet” among parents.

Stressing that no such policy existed or would exist, Rowley said after the first-choice schools picked their students, it was “straight merit and geography.” But the Planning Minister put the country on notice that the 2005 CXC results would be “horrendous” because these were the children who were “used as part of the UNC’s election campaign of 2000” and “railroaded” into high schools when they were not ready. “We have thousands just passing through high school,” Rowley said, pointing out that he was speaking as “a parent and a citizen.” This was the most criminal act, he charged. In analysing Persad-Bissessar’s and the UNC’s performance in education, Rowley pointed out that according to the IDB report the UNC’s loan performance was dismal. In fact, he noted, according to the IDB report, Trinidad and Tobago had the worst performing portfolio in terms of the performance of IDB loans for the health sector and the education sector. As a result Trinidad and Tobago had to pay a penalty of $50 million (termed a committment fee) for not using IDB money. He said the country was now in a position to make full use of the Bank’s resources. He described Health Minister Colm Imbert as one of the finest ministers.

Rowley said the UNC’s “fiscal prudence” had resulted in WASA having to come to the Cabinet “every 13 months” for US $30 million (TT $200 million) to pay for 20 million gallons of water from the Desal Plant. Noting that WASA on its own produces 180 million gallons, Rowley said “the people of Trinidad and Tobago through the Treasury” had to pay “ their (UNC) friends”  TT $200  “for a bucket of water” for the next 20 years because that was what the contract demanded. “Their friends said Desal was a cash cow. What we have to figure out is who has the cash and who is the cow,” he said. Rowley said Panday had “absolutely no goddamn shame” to boast about the airport which was a “symbol of corruption.” He said while the PNM talked about vision 2020 and looked to success stories like Ireland, Costa Rica, Chile, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, the UNC, including Dookeran, was looking at all the failures, like Rwanda, Colombia, Yugoslavia, Guyana, Haiti and Somalia. He said he expected better of Dookeran. He said perhaps this was because when the UNC had an internal election for Deputy Political Leader, that was the end of the party. But, the PNM, on the other hand was able to have its internal leadership contest in 1996 and within 18 months settled down to the business of formulating a vision for the country, which would ultimately produce Vision 2020. “Ask yourself where would Trinidad and Tobago be without the PNM?” he thundered.