COMMENTARY: STOP THE LIES; TALK ABOUT YOUR PLANS, ROWLEY

Isha Wells (file photo)

When Isha Wells asked Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on TV about the $400 million that the People’s Partnership was “accused of” spending in five years I sensed a PNM setup.

What $400 billion? The PP government that Mrs. Persad-Bissessar led for five years never came close to that figure. If you add up the budget figures over the years you will get a total of $288.1 billion – and that includes the $20 billion for the Clico/HCU mess that the PNM helped create and the $9 billion outstanding for contractors who were not paid by the PNM.

It’s no surprise the question came from Wells, a well-known pro-PNM talk show host who appeared well briefed on the PNM agenda. That $400 billion figure is not new. Rowley and the PNM elite have been pushing it on their platforms, hoping that it will stick.

Rowley’s agenda is to make people believe that the PP is wasting their money. It’s a strategy to cover up his own failure to show people that he and the PNM have a plan to do better. It isn’t working. The reality is that through the UNC’s Rowley Accountability campaign people now know Rowley has no plan and no one can escape seeing the unprecedented development all over Trinidad and Tobago.

Telling lies won’t add to Rowley’s credibility. When you are off by a couple million or perhaps even a billion it’s possible that it was an error. When you are off by more than $112 billion it is a deliberate lie.

Yes, the PP government spent about $50 billion a year, but look at what the PP did with that that money! Hospitals, schools, 100,00 laptops, expanded social security benefits and pensions for all including seniors, settlement of more than 100 industrial agreements, infrastructure repair and development, expansion of 24/7 water services, thousands of new homes, a boost in the energy sector, highways, policing and an improved national security system to name a few.

And there are some very significant things about PP investments in people and the country: no cost overruns, delivery on budget and on time.

Think of how that compares to the PNM record with the Tarouba Stadium, the Scarborough hospital, chartered jets, the mega projects that Calder Hart and UDeCOTT handled under the PNM, the sub-standard projects like Las Alturas, the hundreds of HDC homes that had to be repaired before anyone could live in them and failure to pay billions to contractors. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The PNM’s efforts to market the $400 billion lie is a statement about the party and the character of its leader, Keith Rowley. It shows how the PNM has deteriorated under Rowley from a respectable political organisation to one that has dropped to the lowest level, creating lies to try to win an election.

Every citizen should be deeply concerned about this. If a party that wants to govern Trinidad and Tobago can so boldly lie to the population when it is NOT in government what can you expect from them if they make it back to government? And it must be seen in the context of the PNM’s most recent past of wastage, cost overruns, lack of transparency and clear evidence of corruption, all of it while Rowley served as a senior cabinet minister. He himself accused his own government of being the most corrupt ever.

Telling lies has now become the hallmark of this Rowley PNM.

Now is the time to put the lies aside, do a reality check and focus on the real issues in this campaign. The choices are clear.

On one side you have a leader who has taken tough decisions, brought an economy to buoyancy through effective fiscal measures, maintained a strong social safety net while dealing with drastic drops in revenues, focused on the development of the country for the benefit of all citizens and a has a vision of prosperity for all.

On the other hand you have a man who has failed to produce any new plans, is obsessed with bringing back failed PNM polices like the $60 billion Rapid Rail and increasing his own pay, the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Agency, the hated property tax and more. And up to now he cannot tell the people what he will do for them to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

He is known for his lies – like the emails, the election writs, the 25,000 signatures on a petition to the president, the OPV arbitration. There isn’t enough room here to list all the Rowley and PNM lies. 

While Rowley’s focus remains on lies and misinformation, Kamla can show achievements and great plans for the next five years and beyond. It’s a matter of going backwards or moving forward. Making the right choice has never been this easy. 

-Jai Parasram