PM: Mischief-making by MP Charles

THE Prime Minister last week alluded that Naparima MP Rodney Charles was mischief-making in asking if this country was biased is its treatment of different types of immigrant.

In a listed question to the PM in the House of Representatives on Friday, Charles asked, “Could the Prime Minister state why refugees from Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone are treated less favourably than those from Venezuela?”

Rowley impatiently replied, “That’s a matter of opinion and a basis for mischief-making.” Charles pressed on. “Could the PM indicate if and when we will have a comprehensive refugee policy that is humane, linked to our absorptive capacity and which treats Africans and fellow Caricom citizens equally and respectfully?”

Rowley, more softly now, replied, “These situations tend to generate emotion, of one kind or another as you see here. But TT has always dealt with persons within our borders within the context of the adjectives used (by Charles.)”

Newsday stories recently featured activist Khafra Kambon contrasted the amnesty being given to Venezuelan migrants in TT to the fate of African illegal migrants who are regularly jailed, some for many years, before being deported back to their home country.