Panday: Manning knows PNM corrupt

OPPOSITION LEADER Basdeo Panday charged that Prime Minister Patrick Manning knows his administration is “the most corrupt Government” in Trinidad and Tobago’s history, and more UNC people will be arrested in the run-up to the 2007 general elections to conceal acts of alleged PNM corruption. Addressing a UNC public meeting at St Helena Hindu School on Monday night, Panday said it was noteworthy that the Prime Minister chose corruption and his Government’s efforts to combat it as one of the main themes of his speech at last weekend’s 39th annual PNM convention in Chaguaramas.

The UNC leader said this “is the most telling admission so far that he recognises that this PNM Government under him is being perceived as the most corrupt the country has ever seen.” “That was robber talk! He is saying these things because it is hurting and he is knowing that the public knows that he is ruling the most corrupt Government that this country has ever seen. For five years, they calculatedly painted the UNC as corrupt. Anything we did, we were corrupt!” he declared. Noting that several frontline UNC members are now facing corruption charges before the courts, Panday claimed: “They are going to arrest a few more just before the elections.”  He also alleged that the PNM believed “the only way to get away from their corruption is you keep other people being accused of corruption.”

Declaring that the Opposition would not allow Government to escape unscathed, Panday said: “Every time they open their mouth, we going to put our foot inside of them. Manning’s speech was a forced-ripe attempt to smother the swelling public opinion that his is the most corrupt Government that the country has ever seen.” Panday said he had no confidence in the Commission of Inquiry established to investigate contracts awarded to NH International and Warner Construction, or the Integrity Commission’s investigations into the Landate development. Reiterating his calls for constitutional reform and civil disobedience, Panday told supporters he would soon order them not to pay taxes  to Government as a form of protest against its policies.

St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran said he wrote to Manning on March 3 about his constituents’ concerns about being unable to gain employment in the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) because “they have to have a PNM party card.” The Prime Minister responded to Dookeran in a March 22 letter that: “There is absolutely no requirement for the possession of a party card or attendance at party group meetings. The basis on which you claim your constituents are being denied employment is therefore totally at variance with the principles and practices of  this  administration formed from the PNM.”