Economist responds to PNM taunt: I'm no vagrant

Economist Dr Vanus James has said, “I never come to the platform for accolades.” But he took umbrage at a statement by chairman of the PNM Tobago Council Stanford Callender that he looks like a vagrant.

At a PNM public meeting at the Black Rock Hard Courts on Sunday, Callender said: “You must stand out among your peers. So when I see Farley (Augustine), who like to dress up nice, standing next to Vanus, who look like a vagrant, I said, 'Shame on you, Farley.'

"My grandmother always said to me, if you show me your friends, I would tell you who you are.”

Callender also questioned James's work on the island.

“When I examine, as a Tobagonian, what has Dr Vanus James contributed to the people of Tobago, I come up with zilch, zero, nothing,” he said.

James responded on Monday when he took the stage at the same venue at a PDP meeting.

“I do not need to blow my own trumpet in Tobago, but when you watch me talk and you hear me talk, you know that eh no vagrant.

“On the other hand," he charged, "when the people of Tobago hear the leaders of the PNM talk and they hear the gutter politics they want to bring to our people and they hear the racism that they want to practise here in Tobago; and when the people of Tobago look at the record of the PNM on mismanagement, the destruction of the economy of Tobago and the disappearance of our money – they know that on the 25th of January, they must go to the polls and dismiss the PNM from office.”