Manning and Dookeran to meet on crime

Neither Dookeran nor Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday was in the Parliament. Later in the sitting, the Budget was subsequently passed.

Either misunderstanding or deliberately misreading Dookeran statements, Manning said: "I accept his offer for discussions. As Political Leader of the PNM (and he as Political Leader of the UNC) we will meet and we will talk. We will discuss as priority number one, crime. And we hope that at the end of those discussions we are able to secure the support of honourable members (of the UNC) to bring about the best of legislation which the entire national community believes is now necessary," the Prime Minister stated, to loud table-thumping. The Government has failed twice to pass special majority legislation because of the intransigence of the Panday-led UNC.

Manning said times were changing and that the state of development that the country had reached meant that it was about to enter into a new phase of Government/Opposition relations. "It must take place," he said.

UNC Leader Winston Dookeran, who had stated that he supported the idea of a President Maxwell Richards-led initiative to get Manning and Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday to the table to discuss the issue of crime, expressed surprise last night when informed of the PM’s invitation. With a quizzical tone, he asked if the PM’s invitation was to him or to the Opposition Leader. Told it was made to him, Dookeran said: "I think it is a positive move."

Saying he was not uninitiated in politics, Manning said he understood that the UNC was going through a very difficult period. "But hopefully that too shall pass. You still have a responsibility to provide a proper opposition to Trinidad and Tobago, and we are prepared to talk with you in the interest of the people who elected us," the PM said.

Manning indicated his hope that there would now be a more collaborative approach. "We are aware that changes are taking place in the Opposition party. Mr Speaker we look at these things from a safe distance.

Manning also announced that Government was seriously considering a proposal for a new teaching hospital to replace the Port-of-Spain General Hospital on the site south of the Memorial Park.

He said John Hopkins, "the number one hospital in the US for the past 15 years with a medical school second only to Harvard Medical School," had been invited to develop the plan for a new hospital as part of an academic medical institution, adopting the North American model of utilising teaching hospitals.

"On the site recently acquired by Udecott, south of Memorial Park — that block — Government is considering the construction of a new teaching hospital to replace the Port-of- Spain General Hospital, in collaboration with John Hopkins Medical Centre," he said.