Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion PNM is start­ing a pro­gramme to "clean up" the vot­ers' list in Trinidad for up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.The par­ty will be us­ing the strate­gies em­ployed in its re­cent suc­cess­ful To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly cam­paign, PNM MP Colm Im­bert said on Tues­day night."That's how we were suc­cess­ful in To­ba­go. Is Trinidad time now," Im­bert said, ad­dress­ing a PNM meet­ing at St Au­gus­tine. It be­gan the Op­po­si­tion's pub­lic out­reach to pre­pare for lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls, due by Ju­ly.

Im­bert said PNM had got To­bag­o­ni­ans to come out to reg­is­ter to vote and the vot­ers' list was cleaned up. He said the PNM was al­so suc­cess­ful with the ini­tia­tive in 2000."And we're go­ing at it again. Once you do that the PNM will come march­ing home."Im­bert said il­le­gal guns were com­ing in­to T&T along with drugs and while the drugs move on to their ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion over­seas, the guns, of­ten a lagniappe in the trans­ac­tion, re­mained in T&T.

PNM meet in St Au­gus­tine

How­ev­er, Im­bert said, Gov­ern­ment dis­man­tled all the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, in­clud­ing can­celling the pro­posed off­shore pa­trol ves­sels, yet the Prime Min­is­ter at the re­cent Cari­com in­ter-ses­sion­al meet­ing in Haiti, said she want­ed to have an "At­lantic wall of se­cu­ri­ty."Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment could not do any­thing on the crime is­sue in the last cou­ple years in of­fice since the time for im­ple­ment­ing plans was in the ear­li­er part of a term.

Im­bert and PNM sen­a­tor Ter­rence Deyals­ingh ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to muz­zle the me­dia by in­vok­ing the claus­es of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act to get free air­time.Deyals­ingh claimed there was a "clan­des­tine nexus be­tween the PP lead­er­ship and peo­ple who have free rein and ac­cess to the Cab­i­net."He urged peo­ple to join the "PNM Ark."