Rowley: UNC Chaguanas candidate accused of fraud

He made the revelation on Wednesday night at the People’s National Movement (PNM) public meeting at Bournes Road, St James.

To supporters, he stressed that to stay home “is as good as voting for them” and reported that the PNM candidates were chosen by a proper screening process and they settled on people they can vouch for. He recalled that during a walkabout in Charlieville last Sunday a man approached him and told him that for the last two years someone had been using his name and committing fraud and forgery to obtain money from CEPEP.

“He told that to those on the other side, UNC people, and the next thing he know, the man that was accused of doing that is a UNC candidate down in central Trinidad in the Chaguanas Borough Corporation,” he said.

Rowley reported that he advised the man to inform the police about the matter and the man filed a complaint “and the police have taken a statement of fraud and forgery against a front line UNC candidate in the Chaguanas Borough Corporation”.

He said that with four to five days before the Local Government election the Opposition was talking “about all other kinds of things” but not the issue of Local Government.

Rowley reported that he saw the United National Congress (UNC) Local Government manifesto in the newspapers that morning and he saw on television news a comparison between the PNM position, which advocated for the last two weeks non-stop and from Opposition days, election manifesto and consultations, and the UNC manifesto.

“And he (the reporter) went down item by item and every single item that the PNM had spelled out as what our major plans of Local Government reform change for the better it was put in their manifesto,” he said.

He pointed out the similarities include using the Tobago House of Assembly model to use taxes for the corporations and the social services system being on a local level.

Rowley said that the UNC was fighting the Movement for Social Justice over an old PNM slogan “send a message” but he urged supporters for the Local Government elections “to send a message to them that you don’t want them back”.

He pointed out that they have now produced a manifesto with issues of “plagiarism and cut and paste”.