UNC MP Moonilal seeks PNM forgiveness

OROPOUCHE MP Dr Roodal Moonilal called on the ruling PNM to forgive questionable employment practices undertaken by the former UNC Government and promised the UNC would do likewise should it ever return to office. Speaking during debate in the House of Representatives on last Friday’s motion to approve the First Report of the House’s Finance Committee on Proposals for Supplement-ations and Variation of the 2003 Appropriation, Moonilal said both the UNC and PNM seemingly conducted questionable employment practices in the State sector during their respective tenures in Government.

“We may have to write-off the practices of the former PNM Government and even if you want, the former UNC Government. Write off people practices. Start afresh, but do it in a way where you implement the laws so that any other Government thereafter can also follow the law,” he suggested. Moonilal added that to this end, Government should consider the creation of a Ministry of Employment which was separate and distinct from the Ministry of Labour. However, Moonilal’s conciliatory tone swiftly changed as he announced his intention to write the International Labour Organisation about discriminatory employment practices in Trinidad and Tobago. He claimed three senior Government Ministers paid monies to an individual to state that in 2000 and 2001, the then UNC regime was involved in voter-padding, but jokingly added that Science, Technology and Tertiary Education Minister Colm Imbert was not one of the trio.

“How you get into power is how you govern,” he declared. Moonilal slammed a plan to place “wardens” in the nation’s schools and said the PNM was transforming schools into prisons. Tabaquite MP Dr Adesh Nanan claimed the Education Ministry was now on “autopilot” and there would be no school violence if Government had followed the UNC’s education plan. Nanan said that he would be calling for the dismissal of Education Minister Hazel Manning. “Again?” Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis asked. “Again,” Nanan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.