UNC's De Coteau calls PNM Halloween govt: All trick, no treat

FORMER Minister in the PP administration Clifton De Coteau has described the Keith Rowley-led administration as a, “Halloween government”.

“They trick people into voting them without the treat,” he said from the UNC virtual report platform on Monday night.

He made the statement in the context of the drastic cut in subvention to the Princes Town Regional Corporation (PTRC) where he serves as an alderman and vice chairman.

“My heart bleeds when I saw over $246,000 taken away from councillors for their offices. What do they (government) want them (councillors) to do, go back in time?

“This trick or treat government, this Halloween government, they trick people into voting for them without the treat. The treat coming is punishment, this is what they have been doing for years, tricking people.

“It’s the political Stockholm Syndrome, where they beat you to a frazzle with your tongue coming out of your head and when you almost ready to die they put a drip of water on your tongue and say ‘great is the PNM.'”

De Coteau asked who is getting the treat, saying it grieves his heart when people come to him cap-in-hand begging for laptops for their children when it is alleged that $20 million is being spent to outfit a building owned by relatives of a minister that is still not in use.

Speaking on the same platform, Oropouche West MP Davendranath Tancoo, said he was appalled by Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis suggestion to Finance Minister Colm Imbert to take money from UNC controlled corporations to fund government expenditure when there is already discrimination in the disbursement of the country’s resources.

“My own constituency of Oropouche West continues to be plagued by flooding. I was heartened when I read a recent newspaper article that the government had cleared all the drains and water courses, had cleaned the retention pond, installed pumps and elevated the banks of the river in an area which had severe flooding a couple years ago.

“But what about Oropouche West? We have floodgates which have been in desperate need of replacement, non-functioning pumps, drains and rivers that desperately need attention and all we keep getting for the last five years is talk, talk and more talk. That is geographic discrimination.”

He said the truth had finally been revealed about the 2020/2021 budget which, at first read, promised something for everybody.

“That something for everybody is tax, tax and more tax. That something for everybody is cut this social service, cut that grant, cut GATE, cut jobs, cut money for the police service, cut money for local government, cut money for education.

“So now you are being asked to pay more, for less.”

Tancoo said the budget was an attack on the working people and the unemployed, on the elderly and the youth, on middle-class families and most vulnerable in TT.