Kamla predicts cuts in public service, fuel shortage

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said the country is in a state of economic emergency and predicts a trimming of the public service and fuel shortage at the pumps.

Addressing supporters at the United National Congress (UNC) Monday Night Forum, Debe, Persad-Bissessar asserted that the Prime Minister’s sudden attack on public servants is an indication of him setting the stage to fire some of them. She called on Rowley to come clean and say whether he intends to fire public servants.

“Every time this man opens his mouth, he has nothing good to say about anyone or anything. Every time he speaks, he blames someone else.”

Pointing out there are good, bad and indifferent in every crop of people, Persad-Bissessar said, “You cannot take a brush and paint everyone as lazy – 80,000 citizens.

“I am thinking, why would he do that? Why would he suddenly come and talk about whether public servants lazy or not lazy? Why would that suddenly pop out of nowhere?

“Mouth open, ‘tory jump out. You know what it is?

“They don’t have the money because they have done nothing to create revenue. They can’t pay public servants, so he’s setting the stage to say, ‘Look they only making noise when time to get pay.’

“Is it that they intend to fire public servants?” she asked.

Meanwhile a video played of the prime minister telling the nation the government had no intention of shutting down Petrotrin.

“You heard him, out of his own mouth, saying government had no intention of closing down Petrotrin – and within days that is exactly what happened.”

She charged the Rowley government with plunging the country into an economic state of emergency, linking it to the closure of Petrotrin.

“We used to get foreign exchange from Petrotrin. Forex has dried up tremendously because we have created nothing else to earn more revenue or new revenue.

“What I see, and predict very shortly with Petrotrin, is that we are going to get fuel shortage at the gas stations. It is already happening,” she said. “Because remember, we have to buy it. We are no longer producing it. We have to buy fuel to put in the pumps.

“I call upon the government to tell us what is the situation with funding to pay for diesel and premium gas and other fuels we now have to import.

“You shut down the company, said it was not making money, put a plan in place – a plan which included a man who fell ill (fired CEO of Heritage Mike Wylie) and the hatchet man Espinet (Wilfred Espinet who presided over the closure and restructuring), who lick up everybody, all, all, all, and now you lick up Espinet.”