KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is set­ting its sights on the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is urg­ing cit­i­zens to pre­pare for the polls sched­uled for lat­er this year, as she gave Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar a low per­for­mance rat­ing in her first year in Gov­ern­ment.

Beck­les ap­peared to shift in­to elec­tion mode dur­ing her State of the Re­pub­lic event at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, sig­nalling that the par­ty’s cam­paign will soon be ramped up.

“Soon we will sound our bat­tle cry and I ask you to get ready. We have in­vit­ed nom­i­na­tions for per­sons for lo­cal gov­ern­ment in elec­toral dis­tricts where we do not have sit­ting mem­bers of par­lia­ment,” Beck­les said.

“We are get­ting our­selves ready. You, peo­ple in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, need to get your­selves ready… I’m warn­ing you, lo­cal elec­tions is due.”

Beck­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of be­ing heart­less to­wards sev­er­al mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions by dras­ti­cal­ly cut­ting their bud­gets.

She al­leged that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led ad­min­is­tra­tion had de­creased the bud­gets of PNM-led cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Port-of-Spain and Point Fortin, by 79 and 68 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly. She said this was done while the bud­gets of UNC-led cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Ch­agua­nas and Debe/Pe­nal, were in­creased by 122 per cent.

“This Gov­ern­ment is heart­less, heart­less. And I want to warn you that as time comes clos­er to lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, they’re go­ing to come and of­fer you again, ham, lamb and jam. And I’m telling you, make sure and take it, take all of it and vote against them.

“Be­cause the truth is that that is what they’re go­ing to do to you again. But you must re­mem­ber, re­mem­ber, they are go­ing to come to you and they’re go­ing to of­fer you every sin­gle thing. And they’re go­ing to tell you, you’re go­ing to win again.”

Bash­ing Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship over the last year, she said the coun­try is now in a worse po­si­tion, with in­creased crime, a weak­ened econ­o­my and de­bil­i­tat­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.

She ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hav­ing no re­al crime plan out­side of states of emer­gen­cies.

She grad­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s gov­er­nance a three out of ten, but gave the PNM a six out of ten in Op­po­si­tion.

Beck­les al­so un­loaded a bar­rage of crit­i­cism to­ward sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, call­ing his ac­tions “nau­se­at­ing” and him a min­is­ter “who seems to take glee­ful de­light in the fir­ing of thou­sands of work­ers over the last year, with many re­duced to pover­ty and des­per­a­tion while he per­forms on the stage.

“Gih dem’ per­for­mance,” she said.

She al­so slammed Phillip Alexan­der, whom she de­scribed as a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing “who feel every­body afraid of him” and called his ac­tions “ir­ra­tional rant­i­ngs and vul­gar­i­ty ... who is now best known as the sub­ject of some­one’s sup­port and pa­ter­ni­ty tests and whose job spec­i­fi­ca­tion is un­known.”

Beck­les al­so at­tacked De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, who, ac­cord­ing to her, “has yet to ex­plain his deal­ings with Dan­ny Guer­ra, as well as “the in­co­her­ence” in the words of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, who she said was the “first min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to be ex­clud­ed from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency in a way yet to be ex­plained, de­spite the law say­ing the min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty shall be as­signed the SSE.”

But look­ing ahead, Beck­les told sup­port­ers to be pa­tient and re­main hope­ful as she promised change once elect­ed in­to of­fice.

Beck­les promised to re­open the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), youth pro­grammes start­ed by the PNM, such as the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps, re­verse “harsh and dra­con­ian in­creas­es in tax­es, fines and fees and as a pri­or­i­ty, re­pair dam­age done to Cari­com.

She said one of her first mis­sions once in of­fice will be to meet with re­gion­al lead­ers to mend re­la­tion­ships dam­aged by Per­sad-Bisses­sar.