Richard Lord

While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says noth­ing will dis­tract her from seek­ing to serve the en­tire na­tion and not sec­toral in­ter­est, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day's protest by farm­ers out­side the HDC was "a gross dis­re­spect to the Prime Min­is­ter." Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke in a tele­phone in­ter­view, hours af­ter yes­ter­day's protest ac­tion by farm­ers out­side the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion on George Street, Port-of-Spain. She had ear­li­er pre­sent­ed suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants with keys to their hous­ing units.

At the HDC yes­ter­day Per­sad-Bisses­sar came face-to-face with pro­test­ers who de­mand­ed the re­moval of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal. She said when she emerged from the HDC's of­fices on George Street, she saw the pro­test­ers and pro­ceed­ed to greet them. She said they were chant­i­ng: "Mooni­lal must go! Mooni­lal must go." But Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would not al­low such in­ci­dents to shift her fo­cus of serv­ing the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. "I will not be dis­tract­ed," she stressed. "They may have cause for con­cern."Asked to com­ment on the protest ac­tion yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said she felt it could have been done dif­fer­ent­ly.

She quick­ly added that she re­mained com­mit­ted to look­ing at the big­ger pic­ture. Mooni­lal, al­so in a sub­se­quent tele­phone in­ter­view, said yes­ter­day's protest by farm­ers out­side the HDC was "a gross dis­re­spect to the Prime Min­is­ter." He said the farm­ers "hound­ed down the Prime Min­is­ter and that was in no way a good thing as di­a­logue is con­tin­u­ing on the mat­ter." He said he want­ed to con­demn the protest by farm­ers. "To­day is a for­get­table day... it is a pity," Mooni­lal in­sist­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was pre­pared to see the re­sults of to­day's meet­ing be­tween the farm­ers and Mooni­lal and Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath. Mooni­lal, in yes­ter­day's in­ter­view, in­sist­ed that his spir­it was not daunt­ed by the an­ti-Mooni­lal chants yes­ter­day.

"I get enor­mous strength in these cir­cum­stances and with col­lec­tive Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ty...this is not a mat­ter for the faint-heart­ed," he said. He said pol­i­tics was not a mat­ter of be­ing pop­u­lar at all times. Mooni­lal said he would be at­tend­ing to­day's meet­ing com­mit­ted to do all he can to en­sure the mat­ter was re­solved am­i­ca­bly. He stressed that the farm­ers should "take out their frus­tra­tions on me and not the Prime Min­is­ter."