Kamla threatens Govt over poll

Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar said yesterday she intended to write the Integrity Commission on whether it was right for Government to use $2.5 million of taxpayers’ money to pay  “UK spindoctors” to make the Government look good. “Taking our money to fool us. Nobody believes a word of the poll,” she stated. Piloting a private motion in Parlia-ment, she asked that the House call on the relevant authorities to establish an independent and impartial tribunal to look into the “police killings.”

Persad-Bissessar said it was ironic that Govern-ment spent $4.5 million “to tell us that we are beseiged by criminal activity” (via advertisements on the Police Reform Bills) and then turned around and spent another $2.5 million to tell us how safe we feel. Saying that President Max Richards talked about the country being under seige, Persad-Bissessar said it was not an “emotional panic response.”  Everyone felt threatened she said, pointing out that the President’s wife’s relative, the former president’s bodyguard, a Government minister’s (Eulalie James) son and a UNC MP’s (Nizam Baksh) son, were all victims of crime. “Yet when it reaches the doorstep of the Prime Minister he cries crocodile tears, after failing to address the issue for three years, Persad-Bissessar stated.

The Siparia MP slammed Government for spending money “left, right and centre” on public relations and spin doctors and for “pelting the oil money all over the Caribbean” even as the recent UNDP Report showed that the poverty rate in Trinidad and Tobago was as high as 50 percent. Persad-Bissessar said a recent report by an international body called TASK also named Trinidad and Tobago among those countries with government en-gaged in torture, cruel and degrading treatment. She said the police were placed between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one hand they wanted to deal with criminals, but on the other, they had to protect ordinary citizens. Persad-Bissessar said one could not seek recourse in the court system, which was overloaded. There were 452,000 cases pending before the Magistrates’ Court, she said, adding that to clear the backlog, magistrates would have to do 10,000 cases a month.

The UNC MP said the Police Complaints Au-thority, the other institution which was supposed to investigate abuses by the police, was of no assistance. In last year’s report the PCA indicated that while it received over 4,000 complaints, it only dealt with 169 which were just four percent of all complaints, Persad-Bissessar. Persad-Bissessar stated that the DPP had washed his hands of the affair, saying that the constitution did not give him the power to investigate police killings. The Siparia MP placed the blame for the state of affairs on the Government’s shoulders because Government itself was guilty of disregarding the law. She cited the Marlene Coudray issue, the Devant Maharaj issue, the illegality in granting broadcast rights and the arrangement between NLCB and NBN.