Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned that the Gov­ern­ment's bil­lion-dol­lar rapid rail project is a "rapid fail one" whose par­tic­i­pants will be in ur­gent need of "rapid bail" to avoid "rapid jail."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) con­struc­tion of its rapid rail project on agri­cul­tur­al lands would be "de­railed" and "stopped" un­der the next Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment. "The rapid rail project is a rapid fail one, whose par­tic­i­pants will be in ur­gent need of rapid bail to avoid jail time for which they are sure­ly booked if this ever gets mov­ing," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "And I say if it ever gets mov­ing be­cause the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress will do every­thing in its pow­er with you, the peo­ple, to stop it and we will cer­tain­ly de­rail the en­tire project when we are elect­ed in­to of­fice when­ev­er Man­ning's spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er guides him on the gen­er­al elec­tion date."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ad­dress­ing hun­dreds at a joint stake­hold­ers meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Food Crops Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, the Cunu­pia Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and the Con­cerned Cit­i­zens So­cial Jus­tice Group on Wednes­day night at the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School. She said no one was against de­vel­op­ment but the rapid rail project was one that was nei­ther prop­er­ly planned nor dis­cussed with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty or the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty that would be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the pro­posed project. "Food can­not grow on rail­roads!" she shout­ed. She said: "Hun­dreds of acres of land will be af­fect­ed and farm­ers, some of them third and fourth gen­er­a­tion farm­ers, will be dis­placed. "No one has even both­ered to check in­to the val­ue of the hun­dreds of acres of some of the best agri­cul­tur­al land on the is­land that will be lost for­ev­er to the rapid rail project. No one has even both­ered to ex­plore al­ter­na­tives."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­mend­ed the farm­ers for tak­ing a stand for their rights and de­mand­ing con­sul­ta­tions to make known their re­sis­tance to the rapid rail project. She asked: "How can you iden­ti­fy the route of the rapid rail project and not ex­pect the af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties with whom no dis­cus­sions took place not to feel anx­i­ety and con­cern? "How can you ex­pect that farm­ers can ever be­lieve their con­cerns and per­spec­tives will be un­der­stood when they are treat­ed with such dis­re­gard and con­tempt?" She em­pha­sised that the Gov­ern­ment could not con­vince the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty about the ben­e­fits of its $15 bil­lion rapid rail project. "Where are Man­ning's pri­or­i­ties?" Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.