KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

One day af­ter threat­en­ing to fire “lazy” pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has vowed to up­root what she de­scribes as a “swine cul­ture” en­trenched in Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

This comes with a stern warn­ing that wel­fare schemes, cor­rupt em­ploy­ment pro­grammes and non-per­form­ing state agen­cies and em­ploy­ees will con­tin­ue to face cuts un­der her Gov­ern­ment.

In a strong­ly word­ed so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the PNM of fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of lazi­ness, law­less­ness, dis­hon­esty and de­pen­den­cy, which she claimed had un­der­mined the coun­try’s work­ing and mid­dle class­es.

“For T&T’s work­ing and mid­dle class­es to pros­per, the swine cul­ture en­trenched by the PNM must be up­root­ed from our so­ci­ety.”

She al­so ac­cused the PNM of turn­ing tem­po­rary wel­fare pro­grammes, state con­tracts, gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance and em­ploy­ment in State agen­cies in­to per­ma­nent schemes for dis­hon­est­ly gen­er­at­ing per­son­al in­come.

She said, “Our so­ci­ety must be re­bal­anced in favour of the work­ing and mid­dle class­es. They are the peo­ple who car­ry this coun­try on their backs and some­times feel over­looked in na­tion­al dis­cus­sions about eco­nom­ic hard­ship. Peo­ple in the work­ing and mid­dle class­es in this coun­try have spent years be­liev­ing that op­por­tu­ni­ties are re­served for some­body else. Re­served for those who have mon­ey, for those who have in­flu­ence, for those who know the right peo­ple, for those who have a link. That be­lief must change.”

She added, “The work­ing and mid­dle class­es of Trinidad and To­ba­go are not ask­ing for mir­a­cles. They are ask­ing for a fair chance. They want a re­bal­anc­ing to stop gov­ern­ment from re­ward­ing the swine cul­ture of lazi­ness, schemes, neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes and dis­hon­est be­hav­iour.”

Ref­er­enc­ing the late politi­cian Dr Mor­gan Job, whom the PM cred­it­ed with coin­ing the term “swine cul­ture” to de­scribe what he viewed as the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and moral stan­dards in Trinidad and To­ba­go, she claimed PNM had en­cour­aged a break­down in law and or­der.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said op­por­tu­ni­ties should no longer de­pend on per­son­al con­nec­tions or in­flu­ence, but should in­stead be avail­able to cit­i­zens will­ing to make an hon­est con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety.

She said, “My gov­ern­ment will di­rect the coun­try’s rev­enues to ben­e­fit these cit­i­zens who give hon­est ef­fort at their places of em­ploy­ment, pay their tax­es, obey the law, take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for them­selves and their chil­dren and re­spect each oth­er.”