Chester Sam­bra­no

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has al­leged that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is at­tempt­ing to buy votes in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro us­ing old $100 bills.

In De­cem­ber last year, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the de­mon­eti­sa­tion of the $100 bills to a new poly­mer note.

At the time, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said it was in an ef­fort to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing oth­er re­lat­ed crimes.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in La Hor­quet­ta last evening Dr Row­ley claimed that some of that old mon­ey was be­ing used to woo vot­ers in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy.

"And of course old mon­ey that Cen­tral Bank don't want, that you can't car­ry to the bank they giv­ing you that too and telling you to vote them in­to of­fice and when they win they will change the mon­ey for you," the Prime Min­is­ter said.

He said that is their of­fer­ing to the de­vel­op­ment to the peo­ple of La Hor­quet­ta and urged res­i­dents to re­ject it "that fool­ish­ness."

"Use that vote sen­si­bly and wise­ly," he added.

He com­pared the of­fer­ing of UNC can­di­date Jear­lean John to the PNM's. "So while they are of­fer­ing you patchoi and old $100 bills that can­not be le­gal ten­der, Fos­ter Cum­mings is of­fer­ing a li­brary," he said.

Cum­mings is the UNC can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy.

The Prime Min­is­ter in­stead promised a re­newed push in agri­cul­ture for the area, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the younger peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said once elect­ed a new PNM gov­ern­ment will al­lo­cate $500 mil­lion for agri­cul­ture.

"As soon as the elec­tion is over we go straight in­to prepar­ing the bud­get and in that bud­get will have an al­lo­ca­tion of $500 mil­lion for agri­cul­tur­al ef­forts."

In the 2019/2020 fis­cal pack­age gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $708 mil­lion to agri­cul­ture.

He ex­plained that this will as­sist great­ly with this coun­try's food im­port bill.

"Grow what you eat and eat what you grow and you will nev­er starve," he said.

The PNM is de­fend­ing the con­stituen­cy, hav­ing won in 2015 with 10,428 votes with then-can­di­date Max­ie Cuffie who de­feat­ed the UNC's Jairam Seemu­n­gal, who got 7,606 votes.

Cuffie, who suf­fered a stroke while in of­fice, an­nounced ear­li­er this year that he would not con­test the seat in the up­com­ing elec­tion.