Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns over what she de­scribes as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “dic­ta­to­r­i­al” be­hav­iour, fol­low­ing com­ments made by the head of gov­ern­ment in re­sponse to ques­tions about a po­ten­tial mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ty.

In a state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s di­rec­tive for cit­i­zens to “be­have yuh­self” re­flects a lack of re­spect for ac­count­abil­i­ty and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic scruti­ny.

She warned that the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent re­spons­es leave more ques­tions than an­swers and crit­i­cised what she called a dis­mis­sive at­ti­tude to­ward pub­lic in­quiry.

Beck­les specif­i­cal­ly took is­sue with Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to re­ports of what ap­pears to be a mil­i­tary base.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said in­stead of ad­dress­ing the mat­ter di­rect­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter at­tacked the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and de­scribed pub­lic con­cerns as “non­sense”. Beck­les ar­gued that the pub­lic’s ques­tions are not ob­ses­sive but le­git­i­mate and re­late to is­sues of na­tion­al im­por­tance.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the in­con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing from the gov­ern­ment, which she said erodes pub­lic trust. She not­ed that To­ba­go’s Chief Sec­re­tary, promised au­ton­o­my, ap­pears to have been left un­in­formed on key mat­ters.

“Every Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter be­fore April 2025 has ac­cept­ed the du­ty of up­hold­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law and strength­en­ing CARI­COM sol­i­dar­i­ty. Our na­tion can­not be well rep­re­sent­ed by a Prime Min­is­ter who demon­strates pub­lic dis­dain for in­ter­na­tion­al law, the UN Char­ter, and the con­cerns of the pop­u­la­tion,” Beck­les said.

She re­mind­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar that her of­fice is held at the will of the peo­ple and that she is not above ques­tion­ing or ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“This coun­try does not be­long to any one in­di­vid­ual. It be­longs to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and we de­serve hon­esty, trans­paren­cy and re­spect,” Beck­les added.