PM: Gambling is ridiculous pastime

THE Prime Minister has identified gambling as one of many social ills in TT which the Opposition UNC has no interest in addressing.

At a PNM public meeting in Sangre Grande on Thursday night, Dr Rowley declared, "All over this country, people are gambling left right and centre."

He said those people were "threatening the country's economy, with money laundering. encouraging criminal conduct and wasting our money in a very ridiculous pastime."

Rowley claimed TT is "the only country in the world where there is gambling, but no regulation of gaming and gambling."

While Government has brought legislation to Parliament to establish a gaming commission to regulate the domestic gaming sector, Rowley said, "The UNC is saying, 'We are not interested in that.'"

The legislation is currently before a parliamentary joint select committee.

When arrangements were made through the Australian government to bring two new fast ferries for the domestic seabridge, Rowley said, the UNC tried to scuttle the deal by making unfounded corruption allegations.

He supported Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan's view that the proposed Toco port and other developments would open up the eastern part of TT.

Rowley said all surveys showed that the people in that area constituted five per cent of the economy. He added that only the PNM has demonstrated a commitment to ensure that they benefited from whatever the country had to offer.

Reminding his audience that Government brought legislation to Parliament to abolish child marriages, Rowley said the UNC did not want that. He recalled that when the legislation was being debated in the Senate, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar appointed three men as temporary opposition senators to "argue why underage girls should get married to hard-back old men."

While the UNC will argue otherwise, Rowley declared, "That is their record."

He claimed the UNC also had a record of losing nine successive elections in the recent past, and predicted the UNC would "lose ten times" on Monday.