Imbert: UNC targetted African males in PoS

SCIENCE, Technology and Tertiary Education Colm Imbert shocked Parliament and enraged  Chaguanas MP Manohar Ramsaran when he disclosed that in 2000, the former UNC government implemented pilot programmes in East Port-of-Spain which targeted young African males. Speaking during debate on a motion to approve the Second Report of the 2003/2004 Session of the House of Representatives’ Finance Committee on proposals for the Supplementation and Variation of the 2004 Appropriation, Imbert said it was a fact that the former regime, with the help of the World Bank, commissioned a study in 2000 examining social equity and at-risk social groups. This prompted Speaker Barry Sinanan to intervene as Ramsaran accused Imbert of lying. Sinanan asked the UNC MP to apologise.

“I would apologise for that statement but you see this is what I consider to be bias in this House,” Ramsaran said. Calm returned to Lower House after Ramsaran eventually conceded to Sinanan. Imbert continued that the study was commissioned by the World Bank and the Ministry of Social Development, which was headed by Ramsaran at the time. “That document clearly enunicated the policy that if you had at-risk groups in the society, you need to make special arrangements for them. That document formulated the policy of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago that if there are at-risk groups in the society, we should make special arrangements for them,” the Minister said.

“What I find so dishonest, is that after that study was published, the UNC followed up that study by implementing pilot programmes targeting at-risk youths, young African males between the age of 17 to 24 in East Port-of-Spain. The member of Chaguanas knows that. In fact, he conceded that to me himself. It was a UNC policy, they implemented pilot programmes, but when they see the same thing appear in a PNM document, all of a sudden we are the biggest racists in town. It is an absurdity,” Imbert declared.

The Minister assured Parliament that the $5.6 million identified for financial aid programmes at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of TT (COSTAATT) would be “clearly articulated.  We will not favour any group,” he said. Imbert said St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming should cast the discrimination on his own colleagues instead of the Government and claimed that Yetming was one of several persons vying for UNC leader Basdeo Panday’s job. Earlier in the sitting, Yetming said he had no such intentions and claimed that Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley and other PNM members were vehemently opposed to Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s plans “to bring more people” into the PNM.