Kamla: UNC not opposing smelters

Responding to a question posed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning during Friday’s debate in the House of Representatives on the proposed smelter in Cap-de-Ville, Persad-Bissessar agreed with Manning that the UNC was not opposed to the creation of a domestic aluminium industry and its attached socio-economic benefits.

She said the Opposition’s main concern was that there was no proper consultation with the people who are going to be immediately affected by the smelters’ construction and it appeared as if Government was creating a society of “internally displaced people” in its quest to transform TT into a First World nation.

Persad-Bissessar said Government must not use the instruments of the State to “bully” the population. This prompted Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert to ask Persad-Bissessar if she was “bullying” UNC Political Leader Winston Dookeran in the ongoing turmoil within her party. Dookeran and Persad-Bissessar met for “ unity talks” two hours after the 4.30 adjournment of the Lower House.

At the conclusion of that meeting, Dookeran emerged to inform journalists that he had handed a list of proposals to Persad-Bissessar to place on the agenda if any meaningful unity is to take place in the UNC. The main proposals to Persad-Bissessar were for a single person to lead the UNC (as Opposition Leader and political leader), accepting Basdeo Panday’s resignation as UNC chairman and electing a new chairman and reinstating all dismissed UNC senators and UNC party executives to their former posts with immediate effect.