Gail Alexan­der

The bat­tle for To­ba­go is on with the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) ad­min­is­tra­tion! Kei­th Row­ley sound­ed that clar­i­on call yes­ter­day to PN­Mites at the Grand Stand of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain. "The troops are gath­er­ing in To­ba­go. The mo­ment is at hand!" Row­ley de­clared.

The PNM's 44th An­nu­al Con­ven­tion held nu­mer­ous ref­er­ences to the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion with state­ments and en­cour­age­ment from many speak­ers in­clud­ing Row­ley. Row­ley who not­ed that it was the first time the par­ty held its con­ven­tion at the Sa­van­nah-and not the last, he added-said the gath­er­ing told him: "The PNM is alive and well, the spir­it of the PNM is mov­ing through all the land-PNM's cup run­neth over!"

Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing on the theme "Putting the Na­tion back on Track," Row­ley at­tacked the Gov­ern­ment for what he deemed the de­struc­tion of T&T. He tar­get­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Row­ley al­so out­lined poli­cies he said a new PNM Gov­ern­ment would in­sti­tute.

Wad­ing in­to Ram­lo­gan on the OPV?is­sue, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment "hid" fund­ing in the Na­tion­al?Se­cu­ri­ty's bud­get al­lo­ca­tion to fund pay­ments for the OPV?set­tle­ment.?He said he had asked the min­is­ter dur­ing the bud­get de­bate what a cer­tain mil­lion dol­lar fund­ing was for and he was told "equip­ment."

He said the Gov­ern­ment should now be served with pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters for the OPV?is­sue: "What is good for the goose is good for the gan­der-they didn't lis­ten!" Row­ley added.

Row­ley said: "We have an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al who is gen­er­al­ly known more for his bel­liger­ent in­dis­cre­tions, who ad­mits to his in­ad­e­quate qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the suc­cess­ful per­for­mance of his du­ties. He de­scribed Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a Prime Min­is­ter best known for her mis­steps, mis­takes, mis­cal­cu­la­tions, mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions, mis­un­der­stand­ing of her pow­er and au­thor­i­ty over the THA."

He added: "She is mis­in­formed, mis­guid­ed, wal­low­ing in mis­for­tunes, mis­di­rec­tions, mis­ap­point­ments, mis­judg­ments, mis­al­lo­ca­tions, and on most morn­ings-miss­ing in ac­tion." Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment now thinks "they can buy To­ba­go."

Row­ley said: "From the first mo­ment the Prime Min­is­ter set foot on To­ba­go, her bel­li­cose stance was marked by her de­c­la­ra­tion that she has "cour­t­house clothes" and her hos­til­i­ty to the du­ly elect­ed PNM-con­trolled THA nev­er abat­ed.

"She re­fused to ac­knowl­edge the ex­is­tence of the le­gal ex­ec­u­tive body and in­sult­ed the As­sem­bly at every turn but To­bag­o­ni­ans are a proud, re­spect­ful peo­ple who are more than ca­pa­ble of en­dur­ing these slights and de­fend­ing their ho­n­our with dig­ni­ty."

Prais­ing THA head Orville Lon­don, Row­ley said: "As PNM?po­lit­i­cal leader and a To­bag­on­ian by birth, I de­lib­er­ate­ly al­lowed the To­ba­go po­si­tion to emerge with­out in­ter­fer­ence hav­ing stat­ed that I would join in sup­port at the ap­pro­pri­ate time and all To­bag­o­ni­ans know that they can count on me, and the PNM, to pro­tect the best in­ter­est of To­ba­go.

"And so, with this pro­nounce­ment to all and sundry, on be­half of the PNM, I, as po­lit­i­cal leader do here­by now fur­ther de­clare that the bat­tle to res­cue and save our coun­try is on. The troops are gath­er­ing in To­ba­go and the mo­ment of de­ci­sion is at hand."

Fur­ther chastis­ing the Gov­ern­ment, Row­ley added: "The in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 ma­nip­u­la­tion speaks out loud­ly and clear­ly. This dis­dain­ful act will stand for all time as the most of­fen­sive and das­tard­ly act of be­tray­al which any gov­ern­ment has ever con­tem­plat­ed for ex­e­cu­tion up­on our cit­i­zens.

"Any self-re­spect­ing gov­ern­ment with the mi­nut­est mod­icum of pride left in it­self, hav­ing been so glar­ing­ly caught and dis­graced, would have im­me­di­ate­ly demit­ted of­fice for less than that,"?he said. On the Gov­ern­ment's per­for­mance, Row­ley said: "We see the press un­der sus­tained at­tack even to the point of min­is­te­r­i­al threats and open ha­rass­ment of jour­nal­ists at their homes and at their work­place...

Each min­is­ter strives to be the main at­trac­tion, stalling and stum­bling on stage: one jostling to be the vil­lage id­iot from San Juan, the oth­er to be the "En­er­giz­er bun­ny ac­tion man."

PNM wants union be­tween busi­ness, labour

A?new PNM Gov­ern­ment would en­cour­age a col­lab­o­ra­tive en­vi­ron­ment be­tween busi­ness and labour, says Kei­th Row­ley. Out­lin­ing pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives of a new PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion as he ad­dressed yes­ter­day's PNM?con­ven­tion, Row­ley said: "The task of re­build­ing T&T is daunt­ing so wide­spread has been the de­mo­li­tion and de­struc­tion which has tak­en place in the re­cent past, some un­for­tu­nate­ly in­flict­ed in our time and among our own ranks."

He said a PNM Gov­ern­ment "will work hard­er at en­cour­ag­ing a bet­ter col­lab­o­ra­tive en­vi­ron­ment be­tween busi­ness and labour so as to min­imise dis­trust and max­imise the Gov­ern­ment's role as an in­vestor and a fa­cil­i­ta­tor in es­tab­lish­ing eco­nom­ic projects."

Row­ley said Petrotrin and NGC would have to be "re­viewed and he would ob­tain in­dus­try ad­vice on this." He hint­ed at a Petro­bras style ad­min­is­tra­tion. He said the PNM would sep­a­rate the her­itage com­po­nent from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund to se­cure T&T's sav­ings and place the her­itage as­pect un­der Par­lia­ment su­per­vi­sion.

He said en­er­gy and en­er­gy-based in­dus­tries re­quire ur­gent at­ten­tion. Row­ley said he would in­vit­ed the Op­po­si­tion-to be part of a Par­lia­men­tary team on en­er­gy. He said T&T must not put it­self in a po­si­tion of high­er debt lev­els which are ul­ti­mate­ly un­sus­tain­able. "The way things are go­ing, we might well find dan­ger­ous­ly high lev­els of debt when we come to of­fice in 2015 or soon­er," he said.