Acting PM bats for PM on kidnapping statement

Acting Prime Minister Joan Yuille-Williams sought to shield Prime Minister Patrick Manning from criticisms of the statement he reportedly made in Washington that many kidnappings were bogus.

According to a newspaper report, Manning reportedly stated that many of the kidnappings were bogus and some were used by people to defraud relatives of money. Members of the business community have been critical of the PM’s reported remark. But questioned on it after yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference, Yuille-Williams  said she didn’t know the context in which the statement was made. “Sometimes you hear things that might have been taken out of turn. He probably made reference to the fact that there were some false kidnappings and that (position) would have come after the police had investigated.”

Noting that the Police Commissioner stated on Wednesday that of the 43 kidnappings, 10 were false, Yuille-Williams stated that the Prime Minister, who made the statement in Washington on the day before, was probably drawing on these statistics when he made the remark. “It certainly does not mean that he does not care or that we (in the Government) are not caring,” she stressed, adding that Government had invested much in its anti-crime initatives. Noting that both Manning and herself had met with and empathised with  members of the business community and their concerns about kidnapping and crime in general, Yuille-Williams said: “I would not have felt that they (the business community) would have put so much attention on that statement,” since it was not made out of a lack of caring.”

On the issue of having former New York Mayor Rudy Guilliani work on an anti-crime plan for Trinidad and Tobago, the acting PM said that the Minister of National Security had informed her that he said he had received “absolutely nothing” on the issue. “We have only read about it (in the newspapers)” she said, declining to comment any further on that matter.