Gail Alexan­der

The "big fish" from Port-of-Spain South's Sea Lots area ar­rest­ed at the Hy­att Re­gency dur­ing the state of emer­gency "get away," PNM Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald said on Tues­day. Ad­dress­ing a PNM meet­ing at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, Mc­Don­ald said she felt vin­di­cat­ed to hear T&T Cham­ber pres­i­dent Kather­ine Ku­mar say re­cent­ly that the or­gan­i­sa­tion will not sup­port the state of emer­gency af­ter De­cem­ber 6. The emer­gency was ex­tend­ed in Au­gust to De­cem­ber 5. Mc­Don­ald said: "There is no rhyme, rhythm or rea­son for the state of emer­gency. Even my big fish in Sea Lots they let go, the one who they find at the Hy­at...my big fish get away." PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley said dur­ing par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the SoE, the Prime Min­is­ter had made liars of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al since she said she was un­aware of any plot by any per­son-the rea­son the AG and Min­is­ter had giv­en for the emer­gency.

PNM MP Amery Browne al­so said the San­ta Rosa prison for SoE de­tainees was built with eas­i­ly break­able gyp­sum par­ti­tions. Mc­Don­ald, anlysing the 2012 bud­get's eco­nom­ics, said she had learned that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an was ad­vised by fi­nance techocrats that there would be neg­a­tive growth in 2012, but he dis­re­gard­ed this and pro­ject­ed one per cent growth. Say­ing there was a bleak out­look for T&T which the Gov­ern­ment had not re­vealed, Mc­Don­ald added: "My grand­moth­er had a say­ing-when things were bad, we in pig..." "Is one thing to cam­paign up and down T&T for elec­tion, but is an­oth­er thing to man­age." "This Gov­ern­ment is gov­ern­ing by voops, vaps and vie-ki-vie," she added.