Opposition MP: Govt acting like terrorists

There was no motion on Caroni in the Parliament on Friday, though talk of the Government VSEP did dominate much of the discussion of Opposition spokesperson.

For example Opposition MP Roodal Moonilal accused Government of acting like terrorists, “telling citizens (at Caroni) to take VSEP or else face retrenchment. “That is terror,” he stated. He was at the time speaking during the debate on the motion on constitution reform filed by Siparia MP, Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the PNM’s strategy worked “brillantly”. “We never said that we were going to start a debate (on Caroni) today,” he told reporters. “You would notice that we offered this afternoon to suspend the Standing Orders to facilitiate such a debate. They (the Opposition) chose not to take up this challenge. We will now have to decide what we will do,” he said.

On the BWIA matter, Manning maintained his position that it would not assist BWIA unless it comes up with the creditable plan. Asked about the crisis facing the airline over the next 24 hours, he said, “BWIA has to deal with its creditors, not the government of Trinidad and Tobago”. Earlier in the sitting, the Caroni issue was a major area of focus with  Moonilal criticising the Government for sending the CEO of Caroni on pre-retirement leave because he had entered into an arrangement with the workers at the Usine St Madeline factory that  if they didn’t take VSEP they would not be retrenched.Turning to the issue of crime, Moonilal said it was the PNM political culture which created the crime of kidnapping. He  said the reason for the crime today was because the PNM was giving people the impression that they were “entitled” to certain resources. “We are embedding in the minds of our young citizens, Mr Prime Minister, a sense of entitlement,” he said. Whether it is “lawful entitlement” to the goods and services of the State or “unlawful entitlement”, he said.

He said this culture was facilitating the crime of kidnapping since people believed that when they kidnapped and demanded a ransom, they were seeking to transfer money from the haves to the havenot. He said prior to 2001 kidnapping was a young boy going out for the evening with a girl and her parents not knowing. But kidnapping for ransom came with the PNM, he stated. He said this is what happens when geologists become sociologists, seeking to address so-called imbalances and transferring the resources of the state to the “disadvantaged entrepeneurs”.