Young: Kamla’s video is not of my property

Energy Minister Stuart Young has denied that a video shown at a UNC cottage meeting on Thursday is that of police guarding his private property.

He also described Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s call for people to “light up” criminals as a desperate act to try and influence voters in the local government elections.

Young, a former national security minister, slammed Persad-Bissessar for what he claimed was an effort at misleading the public into believing that police were providing 24-hour security at his private residence.

In a Whatsapp message to Newsday on Friday, Young said, “Concerned citizens sent me what Mrs Persad-Bissessar said and displayed last night.”

Young said he would “inform the public that that photo she displayed appeared to be a police vehicle parked on a public road outside a grocery and it certainly has nothing to do with me.”

The minister said after being told of the video shown at the UNC meeting, he reflected on the expenditure of hundreds of millions of tax-payers’ dollars during the People’s Partnership for helicopter rides to and from private residences by senior people in that administration.

In his contribution to the 2015/2016 budget debate in Parliament on October 14, 2015, the Prime Minister said that Persad-Bissessar had used national security helicopters as her private air taxi to ferry her from one location to another.

Dr Rowley provided documented information which showed that Persad-Bissessar flew 636 hours on those helicopters while she was prime minister at a cost of more than $6 million.