Sugar shortage — ‘some stupidity’

"You have thousands of people on the breadline because of some stupidity," he said, adding: "There is absolute madness taking place in this country, and on very basic, simple things, which require very simple solutions and actions that should prevent these things from happening."

Yetming was part of a team of UNC MPs, which included Ganga Singh, Roodal Moonilal, Wade Mark and Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan — which held a pre-Budget consultation yesterday with the major organisations representing business in Trinidad and Tobago at the Opposition Leader’s Office.

Yetming said at the consultation the number one concern of the businesses was crime. He said the UNC believed it had a role to play in dealing with crime. But it also believed that the Government was primarily accountable to the population for dealing with the problem.

Yetming admitted that the business community raised the question of reform of the Police Service, especially the Police Service Commission. (The UNC did not support legislation aimed at achieving this objective.) Yetming said the Opposition "respected" the views of business on this matter, and it indicated to the group that "we will do everything we can to work with the Government to address the crime situation. But we are extremely limited in what we can do, especially with a Government that doesn’t listen," he said. He recalled that when the Prime Minister invited the UNC MPs to meet with him at his home "two days before the Police Reform Bills were to be debated," the UNC informed him that they were willing to meet with him on the issue of crime on a regular basis. However, Yetming said, this has not been done.

Yetming said another concern expressed at the meeting was the need for Government to account to the population for what it did with the massive sums of money Government had at its disposal, and also to account for those unfulfilled promises.

Yetming said the business community was also worried about infrastructure, and agriculture. He said another concern was the issue of using the manpower and the human resources of the country properly. He said that while there was no direct attack on CEPEP and URP, the consensus at the meeting was that people should be trained for sustainable employment, and that there should be no perpetuation of the dependency syndrome.

Yetming said some of the submissions from businesses included, reduction in the rate of corporation and personal income tax. He said there were differing views on the question of VAT, with some businesspersons feeling it should be retained (at the present levels), while others felt it should be reduced. On the issue of high food prices, Yetming said that inefficiencies on the port was a big contributor to high prices.

He said there was the feeling that the plight of the disadvantaged needed serious attention. He said the UNC shared the concern of businesses over the high level of poverty in the country.

The party, he said, was particularly concerned about the growing divide and shrinking of the middle class, he said.

"We intend to bring the Government to task for what they have not been doing to deal with the problem in a proper fashion," he said.

Over the next year, Yetming said, the UNC planned to roll out its own programmes bearing in mind that an election was imminent. "We certainly intend to make ourselves attractive to the national population as a party with the ideas and competence to deal with the development of Trinidad and Tobago as we clearly did in the 1995-2001 period," he said.

He said Opposition sought the input of the business community on the Budget "so that in our response to the Budget we would have taken into consideration, the views and recommendations of the business community."