UNC MP: PNM must learn from Guyana

THE defection of a Guyanese MP whose conscience vote led to the collapse of the Guyana government should now be emulated by supporters of the People’s National Movement (PNM), urged Naparima MP Rodney Charles.

He told Newsday Guyanese MP Charandass Persaud had been subject to the daily ire of his constituents owing to the mass retrenchment of sugar workers.

“Mr Persaud was under tremendous pressure due to joblessness and hopelessness, and that forced him to act, on the basis of his principles, for his country’s future.

“The Guyanese are teaching us a lesson, that sometimes principles and common sense trump party loyalty.”

Charles said that just as Guyana had seen thousands retrenched in the sugar sector, so too had TT had thousands retrenched from state oil firm Petrotrin. He said it is time for TT to wake up and for people to put their children’s futures first, rather than a lack of any uproar.

Charles said his attendance at the recent funeral of former speaker Dr Rupert Griffith had reminded him of all the pressures that Africans.including politicians. are put under to conform to the orthodoxies of the People’s National Movement (PNM). He likened the PNM to a cult, and feared its supporters would stay loyal even if the Government brought down TT to the condition of Haiti. “This is not the party of Dr Eric Williams,” Charles warned, saying the country’s first prime minister would never have fired 7,000 in one go but in fact had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery for Petrotrin.

Otherwise, Charles said the Government’s closeness to the Venezuela Government made it hard for TT to be an honest broker between Venezuela and Guyana, whose traditional territorial squabble was recently highlighted when the Venezuelan navy intercepted an Exxon Mobil research ship in Guyanese waters. Saying Guyana is expected to produce 800,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), exceeding TT’s highest-ever level of 260,000 bpd, Charles said TT’s relations with Guyana are so vital that TT must establish a high commission in Georgetown.

A Cabinet minister declined to reply to Newsday's query, referring the paper to the Prime Minister, but Newsday was unable to contact him.