Al-Rawi: PNM keeping its promises

PNM San Fernando West candidate Faris Al-Rawi says the party is keeping its promises to the population.

He said one of the promises the PNM intends to keep is "to replace every single squatting home in this country, where we lawfully can do it, with a new home."

Al-Rawi claimed initiatives like these have caused the UNC to intensify its efforts to influence San Fernando West constituents to win the key marginal constituency in the April 28 general election.

Al-Rawi, who is also Rural Development and Local Government Minister, made these statements on April 15, at a key distribution ceremony for ten starter homes constructed at Bayshore, Marabella.

He has been San Fernando West MP since September 7, 2015.

Al-Rawi listed eliminating poverty, urban regeneration and economic development and delivering housing as some of the things he promised to do when he was elected MP.

He reminded the media that Bayshore was once "a mud pit with ad-hoc agriculture going on."

Al-Rawi said former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley and the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (Udecott) agreed with him the site was appropriate for development.

The area has 3,200 squatters from the Guaracara River to the end of the Marabella Train Line at Kings's Wharf, San Fernando.

He was proud to have delivered quality housing for many of these people as MP.

"We provide starter homes for hundreds of families. They get deeds to the properties they are in. No foolish certificate of comfort and promise and this and that."

Al-Rawi said a winning strategy to deal with crime, equality and living conditions is to "give somebody a home where they live."

Each home, he continued, costs approximately $200,000 to $250,000.

"This is a subsidy coming from the state – it is delivered via the LSA (Land Settlement Agency) and in this case Udecott."

Al-Rawi said there has been a strategy during his tenure as MP to go into vulnerable communities and re-develop them.

"That's why San Fernando has a lesser impact with crime."

While he did not provide figures, Al-Rawi said the statistics for crime in San Fernando are lower than the national one.

He added this is so because "we have been at work with common sense."

Al-Rawi claimed on April 14, "the UNC touched down with big bribe money across the constituency."

He also claimed his UNC rival Michael Dowlath has been missing in action for three weeks.

"Their plan is to buy votes. People know they are not worth 65 cents a day."

Al-Rawi said this is the figure one gets when $1,200 which the UNC allegedly plans to spend per constituent is broken down over a five-year period.

"People know they are worth more than 65 cents from the UNC."

On April 4, Al-Rawi said he had evidence the UNC planned to spend $1.5 million to buy votes from poor and vulnerable people to help them win San Fernando West on April 28.

Asked if he believed the UNC was now accelerating those efforts, he replied, "Hundred per cent sure. Big time. But people aren't foolish."

Al-Rawi told Bayshore residents to ignore the UNC's claims the PNM does not deliver on its promises.

"You are watching a promise in action today."

He said the UNC has yet to tell the population how it will fund the plethora of campaign promises it has made.

Al-Rawi said the starter homes that have been built and are being built in the area is "the government making sure that we do right by people."

He added, "This is how you treat communities with dignity."

Al-Rawi rejected claims from Dowlath that he failed to develop San Fernando West.

"The gentleman has not built a single fowl coop and is coming to comment on the delivery of the impact of thousands of people in San Fernando?"

He recalled turning the sod to begin home construction on the site in 2020.

Al-Rawi was proud to see the initiative had borne fruit since then.