Abdulah: 'Unbalanced leaders' in PNM, UNC

MOVEMENT for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah has charged that the PNM and UNC are offering "unbalanced leaders" in the form of Dr Keith Rowley and Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Addressing an MSJ virtual meeting in Diego Martin on Tuesday, Abdulah said voters have "the opportunity to make history" on August 10 by voting for the balance which the MSJ is offering.

Abdulah declared, "I thought rum-and-roti politics would have been finished in the last century."

Instead, he said, "In Pointe-a-Pierre, one candidate is giving out hampers and some people are also getting a jersey, and in the jersey are some blue notes."

Although Parliament was dissolved last month, Abdulah said former MPs' offices are being used for campaigning.

"That is the yellow party doing that."

He said when Persad-Bissessar vowed to stamp out corruption should the UNC win the election, "I nearly dead with laugh."

Abdulah said at a PP leadership meeting in May 2012, Persad-Bissessar said she heard there was corruption happening under her watch but conceded, "There is nothing I can do about that."

Jack Warner, Prakash Ramadhar and Ashworth Jack (who were present at that meeting), all agreed with him there was corruption in the cabinet and in state boards under the PP, Abdulah said, and after hearing Persad-Bissessar's response, the MSJ decided to leave the PP in June 2012.

The UNC has no election manifesto, he charged, and was trying to pass off Persad-Bissessar's October 2019 budget presentation as one. He also said the UNC has failed to grasp the reality that is covid19..

"The UNC has no road map. They will crash the damn car or run into a dead-end street and get stuck."

Abdulah said if the UNC gets stuck as a government after August 10, "They will stick the whole country in a mess."

He also said by law, no government can touch cash reserves in the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC).

"You can't pick up their money just so."

Abdulah said the UTC is not the National Gas Company (NGC), as he recalled profits being taken from the NGC under the PP.

He said the UNC was also unaware that various actuarial reports showed the National Insurance Scheme fund "is not in surplus." Abdulah asked Persad-Bissessar, "You have no shame?"

He posed the same question to Rowley, after noting some of the promises in the PNM's election manifesto appeared similar to proposals from the Roadmap to Recovery team, established by the Government to develop post-covid19 development strategies.

Taxpayers' money is is being spent to campaign for the PNM, he claimed, through newspaper advertisements by government ministries. He alleged, "That is why they did not want to pass legislation to deal with campaign financing."

The Council for Responsible Political Behaviour, in its code of ethical political conduct, he pointed out, said it is wrong for the ruling party to use public money "in order to win votes."