Padarath: Govt can’t shut me up

PRINCES TOWN MP Barry Padarath says he will not shut up and accused National Security Minister Edmund Dillon of “cracking under pressure” during last Friday’s sitting of the House of Representatives.

Padarath was asked to leave the Parliament Chamber by Deputy House Speaker Esmond Forde after Dillon told him to shut up during debate on a motion of no confidence brought against him by the Opposition.

In a statement yesterday, Padarath said Dillon’s outburst demonstrated that he was experiencing a “meltdown” after listening to the “statistics and facts about his dismal performance in the position of National Security Minister.”

Padarath said neither he nor the other members of the Opposition would be “muzzled and prevented from speaking on serious issues like safety and security” both inside or outside of the Parliament.

He said government was attempting to “distract the population from the high murder and homicide rate by attacking the opposition” saying Dillon could not identify “one initiative” which had worked to reduce the crime and murder rate.

Padarath said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley was “totally absent” for the debate and this was “a sign that the Prime Minister simply was not concerned with what was happening under his minister and in the National Security Ministry.”

He said there is a “growing trend” by government to “silence anyone or any group” speaking out against the Prime Minister’s poor leadership and the government’s inactions.

He said government was behaving like “dictators who were intent on shutting up the voices that reflected the anguish and pain of citizens.”

“No member of the government can shut me up.”