Welcome move against chicken cartel

THE EDITOR: I wish to add my remarks re the 2005 Budget. In particular, I wish to commend the Government on having the political will to remove the import duty on certain food items and especially that of poultry and turkey. Really, I don’t care what these avaricious, constipated so-called business leaders say about people losing jobs etc. It is wicked and immoral for a government to support any industry that willingly inflicts the kind of terror that this poultry cartel has inflicted on this population. I am vegetarian but I see and hear daily, the cries of ordinary people. If they cannot produce chicken cheaper then they have no right controlling the chicken business, make room for someone else who can. Government cannot protect people who posess no moral conscience, who pay their workers below minimum wages (where is Vincent, Robert, Lambert, Indarsingh and the other “firebrand” trade unionist?) and  still want to hold consumers in a “lock neck.”

It is not surprising that Panday and the UNC has sided with these businessmen. The UNC is becoming more and more predictable. In their response to the poultry duty cuts, they have tried to create a “catch 22”  situation. But the real catch 22 is that we know they will vote against a budget which gives free health care to us, free medication to all, cheaper food prices, higher pensions for the elderly, room for  businesses like mine to grow, higher wages for employees, back pay for retirees, and the list goes on. Persad-Bisessaar in an initial response to the Budget said something like “nothing in the Budget benefits the poor man” and described it as a “mauby Budget.” Maybe she should tell us what the UNC did that really benefited the small man.

DANE CHRISTMAS
D’Abadie