Moonilal: Rowley, Hinds setting very poor example to nation's youth

Oropouche East MP and UNC shadow minister of national security Dr Roodal Moonilal slammed both the Prime Minister and the National Security Minister for their conduct at a PNM political meeting on Thursday night.

He said Dr Rowley and security minister Fitzgerald Hinds were leaving very poor examples for the nation's youths to follow.

At the PNM meeting in San Juan, both Rowley and Hinds – while at the podium – repeatedly used the term "G-string" (a type of female underwear) to refer to former police commissioner Gary Griffith.

At the post-Cabinet press conference hours earlier on Thursday, the Prime Minister demanded that retired police Snr Supt Johnny Abraham "shut up!"

Abraham drew the PM's ire for claims Abraham made at the UNC's public crime forum on Monday at the La Joya auditorium in St Joseph.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday at the Office of the Opposition Leader in Port of Spain, Moonilal said, "In schools, we work with principals and teachers on a daily basis to tell our children not to use certain words in school. We are telling our children, 'Don't call another boy a 'sissy,' it's not good.' We are telling our children not to bully people. We are telling our children not to tell others to shut up. It's not polite or proper."

Moonilal said children and teenagers watch the news, read the newspapers and are also on social media, where they will see clips of the Prime Minister calling out the term "G-string" and telling people to shut up, while the national security minister is calling people "sissies."

"What do you expect for our children? This is why today, you have an education system where in schools children are beating other children unconscious and sending them to hospital.
"(How) do you want me to tell my nine-year-old son not to use these terms when he would have heard on the social media a PM speaking this way?"

Moonilal claimed both Hinds and Rowley were now very desperate and frustrated by their impotence in dealing with crime and have "now erupted into a vile pattern of conduct of language and behaviour."