SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on cit­i­zens to ig­nore Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar and her team who are de­ter­mined to get rid of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi who has been go­ing af­ter those in­volved in white-col­lar crime.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in La Hor­quet­ta on Sat­ur­day, Row­ley took sup­port­ers back to last Fri­day’s Bud­get de­bate which he stat­ed the Op­po­si­tion MPs and their leader had no in­ten­tion of par­tic­i­pat­ing in.

“They had no in­ter­ests...this was the Faris Bud­get be­cause the Op­po­si­tion has an ob­ses­sion in try­ing to get rid of Faris. So they con­vert the whole Bud­get in­to Faris.”

The PM said the Op­po­si­tion filed a mo­tion hours af­ter the Bud­get was read “they went and filed (a) mo­tion of priv­i­leged that Faris say that Kam­la fam­i­ly rent­ing some­thing to the Gov­ern­ment. Right­ly or wrong­ly Faris said that ...but was that suf­fi­cient for them to aban­don the bud­get?”

Row­ley said Oropouche East MP Roodal Mooni­lal had his five min­utes of fame when he got up and read out that Al-Rawi is the worse be­cause he said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and fam­i­ly had been rent­ing some­where.

Fol­low­ing Mooni­lal’s state­ment, Row­ley said nine UNC MP re­fused to speak on the bud­get but was on­ly hell-bent on bring­ing down the AG.

The PM said the Speak­er called on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to then wind up the de­bate.

Five min­utes lat­er, Row­ley said the UNC ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of col­laps­ing the de­bate.

“Ab­solute­ly dis­tract­ed and lazy and worth­less peo­ple.”

Ad­dress­ing the vir­tu­al meet­ing, Row­ley spoke about two-acre parcels of Ca­roni 1975 Ltd lands which end­ed up in the hands of its for­mer em­ploy­ees “whether they want­ed to farm or not” fol­low­ing a rul­ing by the court.

“And ini­tial­ly when that land was dis­trib­uted there was a caveat on it...that if the land is to be dis­posed of you had to get per­mis­sion to dis­pose of it.”

The PM said as soon as the UNC led ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice in 2010 they re­moved that re­stric­tion “mak­ing every sin­gle par­cel of land avail­able to be sold.”

The lands, Row­ley said were sold for busi­ness, land grab­bing and hous­ing.

Of the two-acre parcels that were hand­ed out, Row­ley said on­ly 14 per cent are en­gaged in agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

Those who got their hands on free land even­tu­al­ly sold it for ex­or­bi­tant prices.

“All as high as $500,000 de­pend­ing on where they are lo­cat­ed.”

Row­ley said all the UNC were in­ter­est­ed in were them­selves.

“Be­cause a lot of peo­ple got their hands on state lands un­der very du­bi­ous cir­cum­stances...not about farm­ing but about ben­e­fit­ting them­selves. And that is one of the rea­sons why some of them want noth­ing to do with prop­er­ty tax...be­cause prop­er­ty tax would iden­ti­fy fish from foul.”

He said the Op­po­si­tion has been talk­ing about prop­er­ty tax as if some­one try­ing to cut your throat with a ra­zor blade.

“But all them who talk­ing they own prop­er­ty in Mi­a­mi and Toron­to and they first in line to pay it.”

The PM said the UNC has been against every­thing good for the coun­try.

Row­ley said peo­ple in the pri­vate sec­tor who have the means to co­op­er­ate with the Gov­ern­ment “all the UNC do­ing is den­i­grat­ing them. If the Pres­i­dent men­tioned your name as some­body to serve on a com­mis­sion some­where and the UNC on­ly get to find out...and they will find out be­cause the Pres­i­dent is re­quired to con­sult the Op­po­si­tion leader.”

Rather than an­swer Weekes, Row­ley said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would go on a plat­form and dis­cred­it the per­son.

“You tell me one thing that has been ad­vanced for the peo­ple of T&T that the UNC is sup­port­ing. And that is the predica­ment of the young peo­ple of La Hor­quet­ta, of En­ter­prise, of To­ba­go of Point Fortin be­cause with­out the PNM all yuh dead. There will be noth­ing for you.”

In this dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od, the PM said it would have been nice for the Op­po­si­tion to buck­le down and fix some of the prob­lems fac­ing our land.

“That is what they are do­ing be­cause they set out to make life dif­fi­cult. I can tell you there is a de­lib­er­ate ac­tion­able agen­da by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar group of imps, pimps and chimps to make this coun­try a hell hole. I am sick and fed up of their be­hav­iour.”

In­volved in pol­i­tics for 40 years, Row­ley said he has nev­er met a more dis­grace­ful bunch of peo­ple in or out of Par­lia­ment.

“They be­lieve they are en­ti­tled to of­fice...they be­lieve they are en­ti­tled to the trea­sury.”

Af­ter be­com­ing PM in 2015, Row­ley said he went to Bar­ba­dos and was in the com­pa­ny of some golf­ing friends one of whom said a man want­ed to see him about some mon­ey the T&T Gov­ern­ment had owed him.

Row­ley re­fused to meet the man.

A year lat­er, Row­ley said he was ad­vised by the AG “that a for­eign coun­try was do­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a cor­rupt prac­tice be­tween the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and its agents and a sup­pli­er of ves­sels to T&T. Those damn­ing ves­sels that were bought elec­tion year, 2015. Some­where in there, a find­er’s fee of over $200 mil­lion was paid by the Dutch com­pa­ny to some­body who lived in a room in some­body house.

Row­ley said what at­tract­ed the Dutch Gov­ern­ment to it “was the size of the pay­ment be­cause they have cer­tain re­stric­tions as to how much you could pay.”

In Hol­land, Row­ley said com­pa­nies are al­lowed to pay be­tween one and four per cent in a find­er fee’s arrange­ment.

“This thing in Trinidad was al­most 20 per cent that was paid. Not for the boats, you know....for the peo­ple who or­gan­ised the deal. And then I have to be hear­ing the UNC telling me all the time pro­cure­ment ...pro­cure­ment...pro­cure­ment. They know ex­act­ly what they are talk­ing about be­cause that is ex­act­ly what they were do­ing. There is a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion on in­to that mat­ter.”