Opposition leader responds to 2024/2025 budget: Bloodshed, banditry, bawling under PNM

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said the legacy of the PNM after nine years in government is “bloodshed, bankruptcy, banditry, betrayal, butchery, brutality and bawling.”

Persad-Bissessar also accused the Prime Minister and several government ministers of betraying the population in favour of an elitist minority and placing Trinidad and Tobago in a debt trap for future generations.

She made these statements in her contribution to the 2024/2025 budget debate in the House of Representatives on October 4.

Compared to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s five-hour-plus budget presentation in the House on September 30, Persad-Bissessar’s response lasted only three hours and 40 minutes.

The majority of the opposition MPs thumped their desks in support when Persad-Bissessar described Imbert’s presentation as a eulogy “fighting to convince the population but failing to convince them of anything worthwhile the PNM did or is going to do.”

Those not engaging in that action were UNC MPs Rushton Paray, Anita Haynes-Alleyne, Dinesh Rambally, Dr Rai Ragbir and Rodney Charles who have publicly questioned the party’s ability to win the next general election with Persad-Bissessar as its leader.

They arrived during Persad-Bissessar’s presentation, occupied their new seats at the lower end of the opposition’s front bench and observed the proceedings in silence.

Persad-Bissessar said that after five hours, Imbert told the population nothing about plans to generate revenue, lower food prices, or reduce crime.

She claimed the budget allowed the PNM and certain elitist groups to live off the fat of the land while the rest of the population struggled to survive.

“Greed has no shame.”

Persad-Bissessar directly attacked Dr Rowley, describing him as a “perennial boogeyman” who warned about doom but did nothing to improve the situation.

She said, “In the last nine years, the Prime Minister has spent 391 days out of the country, more than one year with nothing to show.”

Persad-Bissessar questioned budgetary allocations to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) of $50,000,000, $35,000,000 and $20,000,000 for building maintenance, cabinet-appointed bodies and hosting of conferences.

Compared to those allocations, Persad-Bissessar said only $1 million was allocated to the Gender and Child Affairs Division in the OPM.

She repeated UNC claims about PNM officials being involved in an alleged paedophile ring.

Persad-Bissessar said these claims were never investigated by the authorities.

“For this government, ‘There ain’t no party like a diddy party.’” Persad-Bissessar while all of this is happening, the PNM is doing nothing to bring crime under control.

“Our country is utterly lawless, a land where chaos, destruction, sadistic brutality, and sick, violent torture reign.”

Since 2015, she continued, government has allocated $60.83 billion to national security and has nothing to show for it.

After recalling that Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh was recently robbed while sitting outside of a bar in his St Joseph constituency, Persad-Bissessar said it took this incident for National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds to know “this is where crime reach.”

Persad-Bissessar repeated her statements about Deyalsingh mismanaging the health sector over the last nine years.

She said Deyalsingh “is either weeping, shedding tears, or liming outside rum shops while the Health Ministry has become a Ministry of Death.”

Persad-Bissessar said Rowley and Energy Minister Stuart Young were outsmarted during negotiations with energy multinationals in Houston on natural gas prices during the 2015-2020 period.

“Today, the Point Lisas Industrial estate is half shut, and our citizens are being forced to pay higher electricity rates because of their disastrous gas price negotiations.”

Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales recently said recommendations from the Regulated Industries Commission on electricity rates are before the Cabinet and no decision has been taken.

Persad-Bissessar slammed Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly for overseeing an education sector which has become fertile grounds for crime and violence.

She said $69.55 billion has been allocated for education since 2015.

“Despite all that money, the Minister has fostered out-of-control school violence and an ever-increasing academic failure rate.”

Persad-Bissessar repeated promises of stand-your-ground legislation, parent patrols in schools and no increase in water or electricity rates should the UNC win next year’s general election.

She said, “This government will soon hear the voices of the 99 per cent on election day.”