Young: UNC plans to devalue TT$

PRIME Minister Stuart Young warned the population if the UNC wins the April 28 general election, they will destroy Trinidad and Tobago.

He made the comment at a PNM public meeting on Harris Promenade, San Fernando on April 2.

"If the UNC wins, TT loses."

Young told PNM supporters the bag of promises being offered by UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to win their votes is "a bag of poison."

The UNC, he continued, has not told the population how it will fund any of the grandiose promises it is making to voters.

Young read from the UNC's 2020-2025 master economic plan and showed a clip of Persad-Bissessar in the 2019 budget debate in Parliament saying the UNC would remove "the dirty managed float" to fund its programmes whenever it is returned to government.

He said the UNC's plan to cause a "15 to one" devaluation of the TT dollar which will increase the cost of basic food items, cut all subsidies, fire public servants and send TT back to the IMF.

In contrast, Young continued, the PNM will remove tax on all public servants pensions, remove VAT on school uniforms and double the number of food cards to help the most vulnerable people in society.

He said the PNM will not allow TT to be "destroyed by Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her pickup side."

Young said while the PNM has 41 candidates of integrity, the same cannot be said of the UNC and its incomplete election slate of candidates and people aligning themselves with the UNC.

He claimed some of them have questions.

"People who have trouble with the law and police looking for them."

Young called no names.

Former Strategic Services Agency (SSA) director Major Roger Best made an appearance at a UNC public meeting in Debe on April 1.

A statement on March 3, 2024, from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) said the National Security Council recommended the removal of then SSA head retired Major Roger Best, the appointment of Brig Gen Anthony Phillips-Spencer as interim director and an audit of the agency.

Best, who was subsequently fired last March, was also arrested in relation to the importation of the rifles on January 29.

He was subsequently released from the Belmont Police Station.

Former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley claimed SSA operatives, under Best's leadership, had been involved in a plot to overthrow the government, and linked the hiring of several members of the Jerusalem Bride Church to the alleged criminal conspiracy.

On January 30, then Commissioner of Police (CoP) Erla Harewood-Christopher was detained at her office at the Police Administration Building, Sackville Street, Port of Spain for the same matter.

Harewood-Christopher was subsequently detained at the St Clair Police Station and later released.

She is suspended pending an investigation into this matter. Deputy police commissioner Junior Benjamin was appointed acting CoP in February.

Also present at the Debe meeting was former deputy police commissioner Deodath Dulalchan who is reportedly tipped to be the UNC's Chaguanas West candidate.

Former Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally, who has publicly questioned UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar's ability to lead the party to victory on April 28, withdrew as a nominee for screening for the constituency.

Former snr supt Roger Alexander was selected as the UNC's Tunapuna candidate.

Alexander resigned from the police on March 26.

Alexander and Dulalchan have faced certain issues during their respective tenures in the police service.

In 2019, an assault charge against Alexander and another police officer has been dismissed because the state’s case failed to get off the ground.

He co-hosted the popular Beyond the Tape with journalist Marlan Hopkinson but was asked to no longer host last February after former independent senator Dr Paul Richards questioned statements he made about gangs on the show.

In 2018, Dulalchan faced allegations of land grabbing near his home in Felicity.

Dulalchan denied using intimidation to displace at least four farmers who had been occupying the said lands for 14 years.

In February 2018, then prime minister Dr Keith Rowley was presented with a report compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries on allegations surrounding Dulalchan and a piece of land.

Then agriculture minister Clarence Rambharat said when a farmer told him the allegations against Dulalchan, he initiated an investigation and the findings were presented to Rowley.

Asked what was contained in the report, Rambharat said: “I believe there are matters now requiring a full investigation.”

The options available at the time to Rowley included the matter to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for directions to be given to the police.

To date, it is unknown whether this matter has been resolved.