Ken Ali

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and con­tender for of­fice, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, of­fered a spree of promis­es yes­ter­day in the run-up to the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion show­down. Man­ning and Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­veiled healthy pack­ages as they ad­dressed re­spec­tive par­ti­san elec­tion ral­lies at Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas. Man­ning told of plans to "di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my as nev­er be­fore," and then spoke of a wealth of down­stream en­er­gy projects. "We will gen­er­ate a tremen­dous new wave of in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Man­ning told a large Wood­ford Square ral­ly of his Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Man­ning al­so said: "All oth­er sec­tors, in­clud­ing ser­vices, re­tail and con­struc­tion, will have the chance to ex­pand their op­er­a­tions. Greater wealth and em­ploy­ment are on the way." He spoke of plans for an in­dus­tri­al and tech­nol­o­gy park at Waller­field.

RIGHT: ?Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the UNC Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at her par­ty's ral­ly yes­ter­day. Pho­to: Rishi Ra­goonath

RIGHT: ?Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM and Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning ad­dress­es sup­port­ers at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Pho­to: An­dre Alexan­der

He re­it­er­at­ed ear­li­er pro­pos­als for boost­ing new sec­tors, in ad­di­tion, he said, to air­craft main­te­nance. Man­ning stat­ed that a "trans­for­ma­tion plan" for agri­cul­ture was un­der way, in mov­ing in­to agro-busi­ness for food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty. He promised: "We in­tend to make every farmer and every fish­er­man in­to a full-fledged busi­ness per­son." He told of im­proved agri­cul­ture ac­cess roads and cheap­er cost for fer­tilis­er, adding that "our com­mer­cial farms are al­ready a re­sound­ing suc­cess." Man­ning re­peat­ed ear­li­er pledges to es­tab­lish an in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial cen­tre, say­ing it "will be­come a re­al­i­ty when the PNM is re­turned to of­fice." For her part, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke of a sev­en-pil­lar that in­clud­ed more school com­put­ers and pris­ons re­form.

He pledged a knowl­edge-dri­ven econ­o­my, with hu­man de­vel­op­ment as "a cen­tral thrust." Re­veal­ing that 20 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion was liv­ing un­der the pover­ty line, she stat­ed that a two per cent re­duc­tion each year from 2011 would be tar­get­ed. "A range of strate­gies" would be out­lined in the man­i­festo of the Peo­ple's Man­i­festo, she said. Em­pha­sis would be placed on in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added. She spoke of a planned di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my, aimed at mak­ing it re­silient and more com­pet­i­tive. She al­so tout­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, "good gov­er­nance and peo­ple's par­tic­i­pa­tion" as cor­ner­stones of the ad­min­is­tra­tion she aims to lead. A new thrust in for­eign pol­i­cy is an­oth­er elec­toral promise. She pledged "con­sul­ta­tion, par­tic­i­pa­tion, in­volve­ment and con­sen­sus-build­ing."