Senator: Stop the covid politics

INDEPENDENT Senator Dr Maria Dillon-Remy appealed on Monday to the Government and the Opposition, to treat the covid19 pandemic as a national problem and not an opportunity to score cheap political points.

She made her appeal when she contributed to the budget debate in the Senate.

"This is not a PNM problem. This is not a UNC problem. This is a TT problem."

Dillon-Remy also declared that covid19 does not care what an individual's political preference is.

"Covid19 wears neither a red banner or a yellow banner. Take off your party hats."

Referring to Opposition Senator Wade Mark's contribution in the debate on October 23, Dillon-Remy said the UNC needs to accept what happened in the August 10 general election.

"The election is over. They (the people) have made their choice."

After saying no one could have predicted the world would be in a pandemic now, Dillon-Remy said it is clear that no country has a blueprint of how to overcome covid19.

She stressed that TT needs leaders at all levels who have vision and integrity. These leaders, she continued, must be purpose-driven, principle-centred and value-driven. Dillon-Remy identified courage, humility and honesty as some of the values those leaders must possess.

She accepted the Prime Minister's position that hard decision have been and will be taken to maintain a balance between lives and livelihood during the pandemic.

Agreeing with Energy Minister Franklin Khan's view that no one can predict covid19's endgame, she said the available scientific data suggest things will get worse before they get better.

But, she said, "Covid gives us an opportunity to do things that we have never done before."

Dillon-Remy argued that an estimated $540 billion spent between successive PNM and UNC governments over the last decade has not improved the country.

On the UNC's election promise to give laptops to students if elected on August 10, Dillon-Remy said, "Putting laptops in schools is not a plan." She criticised the PNM and UNC for failing to complete projects under their respective tenures merely because the projects were not started by one party or the other.

Dillon-Remy was concerned about the future of tourism in Tobago, and wondered whether wellness or sport tourism was something which the island should be looking at. She was sceptical as to whether Tobago could still offer the sun-sand-and-sea package which other Caribbean islands have.