Manohar slams PM’s social outreach

CHAGUANAS MP Manohar Ramsaran heaped scorn on Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s visits to socio-economically depressed communities in the country, particularly within his (Ramsaran’s) constituency last week.

Speaking in Parliament Friday during debate on the Family Proceedings and Mediation Bill, Ramsaran charged that Manning was “dictatorial” during his visit to Enterprise, Chaguanas. The UNC MP claimed street lights and other amenities were being provided to Enterprise residents because of the Prime Minister’s visit and Manning was usurping the role of the State agencies in their delivery of services to the community. “The Prime Minister can’t do that. This is dictatorship. We (Opposition) need people from the other side (Gover-nment),” Ramsaran declared.

Speaking at the post-PNM General Council news conference, Public Relations Officer Jerry Narace said Manning’s walkabouts through these communities last week did not mean Government’s social sector programmes were not working and the Prime Minister was merely seeking to ensure that “social services were actually delivered.” Reiterating the UNC’s condemnation of the URP and CEPEP, Ramsaran said it was time to move away from handouts and towards sustainable development. He alleged that a relative of a Government Minister received a certain sum of money to run mediation centres in a certain way and wondered whether Forbes Burnham politics was at work in the country. Ramsaran called on Attorney-General John Jeremie to investigate the matter. He also took offence with Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s earlier condemnation of the UNC’s behaviour in Parliament, declaring: “No member of the UNC has done anything to shame Trinidad and Tobago.”

Earlier in the session, the Prime Minister lambasted St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming for allegations he made about a Government Minister receiving an undisclosed sum of money to facilitate a plan which would see 20 percent of First Citizens Bank being sold to Jamaican businessman Michael Lee Chin’s Canadian-based mutual funds company, AIC Limited.