PNM has failed miserably

Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim.
Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim.

CHAGUANAS East MP and former Tertiary Education and Skills Training minister Fazal Karim, says that after two and a half years in power, the People’s National Movement (PNM) government, “has failed miserably” on every front. Karim stressed that the PNM remains disconnected from the plight of the citizenry and is directly responsible for the cloak of hopelessness covering the land.

In a release yesterday, Karim said that on the issue of the economy, the PNM introduced misguided fiscal policies which have decimated small businesses and enriched the ultra-elites. The Central Bank reported GDP at -6% in 2016 and -2.3% in 2017, which resulted in successive downgrades by the international rating agencies under the PNM’s tenure.

After hounding the Central Bank Governor out of office, Karim said, the forex situation remains unresolved and is at crisis proportions. Under the PNM, unemployment has escalated and under-employment is normalised, as employers exercise leverage in a buyer’s market for labour. Visitor arrivals are at an all-time low and domestic tourism to Tobago has collapsed because of the sea-bridge fiasco.

On the issue of crime, Karim lamented his own constituency’s woes. After repeated calls from the Opposition to establish a police station in Enterprise, Karim stated that the concerns of his constituents have fallen on deaf PNM ears. Recreational grounds and schools have been left abandoned and the idle hands are left to wander.

Bloodshed in Trinidad and Tobago has afflicted all walks of life, while PNM Cabinet Ministers cradle reputed gang leaders in their bosom. Karim warned that ‘anger rests in the bosom of folly’. On the issue of education, Karim stated that: “one from ten leaves nought” referencing the statement made by former Prime Minster Dr Eric Williams when Jamaica voted by referendum to withdraw from the West Indies Federation.

Karim noted that after two and a half years, The UWI South campus, The UTT Tamana campus, The UTT Aviation campus, and many more secondary and primary schools remain closed or in a state of disarray. Hundreds of workers have been fired by the PNM at NESC, YTEPP, MIC and UTT.

GATE funding Karim said, has been cut from an all-time high of over $700 million under the People’s Partnership Government to $434 million in fiscal 2018. The Keith Rowley-led Government has ensconced the philosophy that, “the future is in your book bag”, as taxes have now been reintroduced on textbooks and even computers.

On the issue of health, Karim stated that thousands are wait-listed for life saving surgeries and CDAP drugs for cancer and other chronic non-communicable diseases remain more scarce than the Member of Parliament for La Horquetta/Talparo.

He stated, much like the ferry fiasco, the mothballed Couva Children’s Hospital is an even more glaring fiasco under the careless hands of the PNM. The Rowley-led Government has failed every sick child of Trinidad and Tobago. Karim also stated that the middle class is shrinking and under siege by this Rowley-led PNM.

Increased fuel prices at the pump on three consecutive occasions, daily increases in food prices, inaccessible quality health care, unattainable housing, increasing costs of education and an onslaught of criminal attacks are the direct result of failed PNM policies. Karim in concluding, warned the population that the same PNM ministers who are overseeing the collapse of many institutions of state, would come the next general election, walk the streets seeking votes and support from the very same people who are being oppressed.

Comments

"PNM has failed miserably"

More in this section