Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has strong­ly crit­i­cised the state­ment made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, re­ject­ing al­le­ga­tions about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and urg­ing her to pro­duce ev­i­dence for the claims.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Beck­les took is­sue with com­ments made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a state­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day. The Op­po­si­tion Leader main­tained that the Prime Min­is­ter used par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to lev­el se­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tions against the par­ty.

The state­ment fol­lowed re­marks in which Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged that the PNM had links to crim­i­nal fi­nanciers and sug­gest­ed that the par­ty’s head­quar­ters, Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain, was con­struct­ed us­ing pro­ceeds tied to the drug trade.

Beck­les dis­missed the claims as base­less and de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment as a po­lit­i­cal at­tack filled with “out­landish” al­le­ga­tions. She al­so crit­i­cised sug­ges­tions made dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary ad­dress that com­mu­ni­ties his­tor­i­cal­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM ex­pe­ri­ence the coun­try’s high­est crime rates, un­em­ploy­ment lev­els, and lim­it­ed ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ties and in­fra­struc­ture.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader warned that the state­ments should alarm cit­i­zens lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, ar­gu­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter had made se­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tions with­out pre­sent­ing sup­port­ing proof.

Beck­les al­so chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to pro­vide ev­i­dence for claims made about crim­i­nal el­e­ments in na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing re­marks im­ply­ing the pres­ence of crim­i­nals on the In­de­pen­dent Bench of the Sen­ate. She main­tained that if the Prime Min­is­ter pos­sess­es such in­for­ma­tion, it should be re­port­ed to the po­lice, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, and the pub­lic.

She called on the Prime Min­is­ter to re­peat the al­le­ga­tions out­side the pro­tec­tion of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege and present sup­port­ing ev­i­dence. —APS