PM silent on crime, vocal on Caroni

PRIME Minister Patrick Manning was silent yesterday on how Government is tackling the serious crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago, but very vocal about persons attempting to inflame racial tensions in the country. He predicted that persons who claimed Government would never deliver on  promises made to former Caroni (1975) Ltd workers, would soon be “forced to eat their words.” Addressing an Indian Arrival Day function at Eco Park in St Helena yesterday, former UNC Caroni East MP (and the function’s chairperson) Indira Sagewan Ali reminded the Prime Minister that crime remained the biggest obstacle to TT achieving developed nation status by 2020.

She expressed her own fears that children have to grow up in an environment where anyone could be a potential kidnapper.  She also expressed concerns that the national unity forged centuries ago by the African slaves and East Indian immigrants was being undermined and replaced by destructive behaviour. Incumbent Caroni East MP Ganga Singh was noticeably absent from yesterday’s function. In response, Manning said crime and illegal drugs were two of the “real enemies” which his administration realises as posing the gravest of threats to the future development of TT. He, however, did not speak on current strategies being pursued by Government to defeat these “enemies.”

The Prime Minister has been heavily criticised for recent statements that he made at a PNM Family Day function about crime being “temporary in nature” and the population would soon see a reduction in the levels of crime in TT. However, Manning was very vocal about persons who use race to prevent the development of certain communities in TT and said the “latest salvo in this connection” was that Government had no intention of honouring its promises of lands (for agriculture and housing) to former Caroni workers. Describing these allegations as preposterous, the Prime Minister condemned persons who were attempting to incite the population through such untruths and trying to send “subliminal messages of our East Indian community versus the rest of the world and vice versa, here in TT.”

“Let me say only this to the national community. The day of reckoning is very close when the Government will open the package and begin to distribute those lands. We are going to give the workers their parkanii or dayna bhoomi as promised,” he declared. The Prime Minister added that when this comes to pass, he will be calling upon all those who have been seeking to mislead the population “to apologise for all their inflammatory and incendiary rhetoric, and more importantly, and above all else, for their efforts to divide the population.”

He further predicted that once the population sees what is in the package for former Caroni workers, “all in our nation will begin to appreciate what we are about here in TT.” Noting the historical significance of St Helena, the Prime Minister promised that the village will soon begin to receive major improvements to its physical infrastructure and social amenities within the shortest possible time. Promising that “what St Helena needs it will get,” Manning said developmental activities in St Helena will be used as a prototype for other communities of historical significance in TT