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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Kamla ‘done playing nice’, says no law to stop citizens coming to TT

by

Renuka Singh
1638 days ago
20210113
UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, during Monday night’s virtual meeting.

UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, during Monday night’s virtual meeting.

COURTESY UNC FACEBOOK

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is call­ing on Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young to an­swer about the bor­der con­trol po­lice and rules of ex­emp­tion which have been leav­ing cit­i­zens strand­ed abroad.

Speak­ing at Mon­day night’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) vir­tu­al cam­paign meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she has in­for­ma­tion that se­nior im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers have been blocked from us­ing the com­put­er sys­tems while ju­nior and com­plic­it ones are grant­ed ac­cess.

“Im­mi­gra­tion ac­cess to com­put­ers have been locked out. Sev­er­al se­nior peo­ple locked out. Who else is com­ing here that we don’t know about?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

“Stu­art, the truth will al­ways come out,” she said.

She said the cur­rent ex­emp­tion pol­i­cy favours some more than oth­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said that there is no law which gives Young the pow­er to de­ter­mine who can come in and who can­not.

“Where do you get the pow­er? From un­der which law you have the pow­er to stop a cit­i­zen to come home?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

“Is it true that once you land here you must get in?” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that she is be­ing told that peo­ple are com­ing in on flights with no ex­emp­tion and can­not be stopped.

“Some few have con­tacts com­plic­it with oth­ers, they board an air­craft and come in,” she said.

“We are told now you are book­ing flights and air­lines get­ting ex­emp­tions from you,” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­called last year’s vis­it by Venezue­lan vice-pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez dur­ing the bor­der lock­down and ques­tioned what Ro­driguez brought in­to the coun­try.

She said peo­ple want the UNC to stay qui­et when the coun­try was “be­ing robbed” by the Gov­ern­ment.

“Well I am done be­ing nice,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so brought up the cur­rent Pro­cure­ment Leg­is­la­tion.

She said the Gov­ern­ment re­moved med­ical ser­vices from scruti­ny.

She said that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi has such close links to the med­ical sec­tor that he had to re­cuse him­self from some med­ical de­ci­sions.

“Why re­move med­ical ser­vices?” she said.

“They play­ing foot­sie with the peo­ple mon­ey,” she said.

She called on the vot­ers to use the up­com­ing by-elec­tions to say no to com­ing prop­er­ty tax and no to gut­ting the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion.

“When we thought right-think­ing peo­ple would have said no to this leg­is­la­tion... it have some peo­ple who vote for this,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned whether any­one who vot­ed for the leg­is­la­tion is linked to the Gov­ern­ment in any way.

“Time will tell and time longer than twine,” she said.


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