Govt put 260,000 below poverty line

OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark said more than 260,000 people have gone below the poverty line under this Government. He made the comment while contributing to budget debate in the Senate Friday.

He said 100,000 workers were dropped on the “unemployment garbage heap” because of this insensitive government long before covid19. He described the budget as rehashing several recycled PNM broken promises which never materialised.

“People are hurting. Their spirits broken. They are jobless, hopeless and penniless. They are hungry and living in absolute and relative poverty. People’s dreams have been shattered and their hopes blasted.”

He declared more than 260,000 people had been pushed under the poverty line, though he did not provide a source for this information. He said this figure will be pushed further upwards due to the “draconian” austerity measures in the budget.

“The only thing this Government is good at is selling out assets to friends, financiers and families and to ensure their pockets are filled while people starve and wither away.”

Mark said Government was not intelligent enough to diversify the economy and all they had done is tax the poor and working class to enrich themselves and their financiers. He likened the PNM method to the slave trade when traitors sold their own people for a few pennies.

“Government is the handmaiden of the parasitic oligarchy and is seeking to marginalise the working people into a state of subservience and perpetual poverty.” He said the choice to re-elect the PNM to power was the wrong choice and people will have to live with the consequences of their action.

“I am confident thousands of people are regretting staining their fingers for the PNM.” He said the oppressive measures in the budget will widen the income gap and declared the PNM was in the back pocket of the “mighty oligarchy.”

Mark said 73 per cent of the wealth in this country is earned by less than 0.02 per cent of the population or 28,000 people. He also said Government has “assaulted” the trade union movement and weakened or dismantle a number of trade unions with “hammer blows” including the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union with the closure of Petrotrin. He said Government threatened to close down the foreign used vehicle industry which will mean 6,000 workers out of a job. He also predicted 3,000 workers will lose their jobs at WASA and 500 workers with the privatisation of the port cargo operations.

“Instead of workers firing the PNM on August 10 (for the general election) the PNM is firing workers. Now is the time for workers to rise up and defend themselves.”

Mark also called for a criminal forensic investigation into the acquisition of two cape class vessels from Australia and the distribution of LED lightbulbs the latter he claimed was located in a house in North Carolina.