Secret PNM meetings to divide Caroni lands

OPPOSITION LEADER Basdeo Panday yesterday said the United National Congress (UNC) has information about ongoing secret meetings involving Agriculture Minister John Rahael and top People’s National Movement (PNM) officials about how to divide Caroni (1975) Limited’s lands amongst themselves and friends of the ruling party.

Responding to a NACTA poll released on Sunday which said Panday’s political demise was sealed because of his failure to address the concerns of sugar workers during the UNC’s six years in government, the former prime minister replied: “Polls can say what they want. I know differently. I came from the sugar workers. I am on the ground every day with the sugar workers. They know it is Ramesh (Maharaj), Trevor (Sudama) and Ralph (Maraj) who are responsible for where they are.” However Panday agreed with the poll’s suggestion of a mad grab for Caroni lands in the wake of the company’s closure two weeks ago. He claimed the UNC had information about ongoing “secret meetings” between Agriculture Minister John Rahael and top PNM officials about how Caroni’s lands could be divided amongst friends and supporters of the ruling party. “We (UNC) have been saying that for a long time,” he stated.

The UNC leader also agreed with other NACTA findings which predicted the rise of several ghost towns in Central and South Trinidad following Caroni’s closure. Panday however dismissed some of the poll’s other findings which said the UNC did nothing to secure the interests of sugar workers, whether in or out of government, or find ways to make Caroni a viable and profitable enterprise. “They (sugar workers) were never treated in this manner,” Panday said. In an interview with Newsday last Friday, Panday said sugar workers knew that having won the 2000 general elections, the UNC should have been in government until 2005 but that trio (Maharaj, Sudama and Maraj) betrayed the party to the PNM. Maharaj has been holding regular meetings with sugar workers since Caroni’s shutdown, promising to champion their cause. Panday described Maharaj’s motives as purely political. “I don’t think sugar workers will be fooled.” Two-thirds of the respondents in Sunday’s poll reiterated that the UNC will never return to government under Panday’s leadership. UNC parliamentarians Winston Dookeran, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Dr Fuad Khan and Kelvin Ramnath were identified as possible successors to Panday.