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Friday, July 25, 2025

Kamla: No utility hikes if UNC back in power

... also pledges to work with unions on better wages

by

293 days ago
20241005
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar delivers her response to the 2025 Budget in Parliament yesterday.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar delivers her response to the 2025 Budget in Parliament yesterday.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pledges to the peo­ple!

A UNC gov­ern­ment will im­me­di­ate­ly halt any plan to in­crease wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates at this time. Plus, a UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion will act ur­gent­ly to use the free col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process to re­solve out­stand­ing set­tle­ment ne­go­ti­a­tions and al­so work with all unions to en­sure ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) hous­ing is pri­or­i­ty.

So said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, as she de­liv­ered a slew of com­mit­ments on sec­tors—from se­cu­ri­ty to ed­u­ca­tion—in her re­ply to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s 2025 Bud­get.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called for Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed di­vest­ment of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, Cli­co share­hold­ing and the Mag­dale­na Grand Ho­tel to be placed “un­der the watch­ful eye of the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.”

While Im­bert’s Bud­get theme was “Stead­fast and Res­olute—Forg­ing Path­ways to Pros­per­i­ty,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ply was themed, “A decade of debt, deficit, desta­bil­i­sa­tion, death and de­struc­tion.”

“I ded­i­cate this to the 99 per cent—the av­er­age cit­i­zens who this PNM Gov­ern­ment has aban­doned,” she said.

Im­bert spoke for over five hours. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who start­ed at 10.01 am yes­ter­day, com­plet­ed her de­liv­ery in three hours and 40 min­utes.

Dressed in red, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her tenth Bud­get re­ply, dis­missed Im­bert’s Bud­get.

“The Min­is­ter spoke for five hours and 13 min­utes to an­nounce a $2 per hour min­i­mum wage in­crease to some work­ers and a five per cent new of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants.

“He joked about dou­bling his speak­ing time to ten hours. I’d have pre­ferred if he had dou­bled the min­i­mum wage in­crease to $4 per hour and the of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants to ten per cent in­stead. I take note, Min­is­ter—it takes a res­olute dis­po­si­tion and stead­fast ded­i­ca­tion to be that te­dious for five hours.”

She added, “He spent over five hours read­ing the PNM’s eu­lo­gy ... Five hours of talk and noth­ing about low­er­ing food prices, or about se­nior cit­i­zens, about gen­er­at­ing more rev­enue; noth­ing cred­i­ble about fight­ing crime and mur­ders or about job cre­ation for thou­sands of un­em­ployed.”

“Even if the Min­is­ter had tak­en 10, 12, or even 24 hours, he would still have been short on cred­i­bil­i­ty. Be­cause the Gov­ern­ment isn’t just bank­rupt for cash; they’re bank­rupt for so­lu­tions ... he spent long hours ‘paint­ing’, ‘gloss­ing’, ‘var­nish­ing’, and ‘putting up new cur­tains’, smoke screens and mir­rors. This time, though, there were very few buy­ers,” she said cit­ing “the decade of de­struc­tion that cit­i­zens have en­dured.

“De­spite the five hours and 13 min­utes of a mad­man’s rant, the pop­u­la­tion had tuned out long be­fore Mon­day...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­vot­ed a large sec­tion of her ad­dress to slam­ming Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance in all sec­tors; as well as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s lead­er­ship and oth­er min­is­ters.

She pre­sent­ed the UNC’s al­ter­na­tive plans for Gov­ern­ment in all ar­eas.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said fund­ing to make this a re­al­i­ty would come from UNC’s Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion plan and from re­mov­ing “the waste, cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment” oc­cur­ring.

“This PNM Gov­ern­ment has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly been mak­ing the rich rich­er and the poor poor­er for the past nine years, and the cur­rent bud­get con­tin­ues this dis­as­trous trend ... it’s time to bring back peo­ple-cen­tred UNC gov­er­nance,” she added.

No rate hikes

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Im­bert “sheep­ish­ly” ad­dressed the pre­vi­ous­ly tout­ed in­crease in wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates with­out giv­ing any specifics and up­dates on Gov­ern­ment’s plans, “es­pe­cial­ly since the elec­tric­i­ty rate re­view is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Cab­i­net and the wa­ter rate re­view is at the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion.”

“This is an at­tempt to pull the wool over the cit­i­zens’ eyes. This comes as no sur­prise in an elec­tion year, de­spite the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­vi­ous po­si­tion that a wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rate re­view was para­mount to them to col­lect ad­di­tion­al rev­enue. The pop­u­la­tion must go in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion with their eyes wide open on the is­sue of in­creased wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates.”

She added, “Gov­ern­ment can­not leave this is­sue in lim­bo. There­fore, whether it’s the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties or the Prime Min­is­ter, the pub­lic must be told: how much the rate in­crease will be and from when it will be ef­fec­tive un­der a PNM Gov­ern­ment.

“To do oth­er­wise is play­ing smart with fool­ish­ness, since cit­i­zens are very aware that the Gov­ern­ment has adopt­ed a hold­ing po­si­tion on this is­sue un­til af­ter the next gen­er­al elec­tion.”

“Gov­ern­ment’s han­dlers have told them to back off on the is­sue since it has re­ceived wide­spread pub­lic op­po­si­tion. Should cit­i­zens for­get God and vote the PNM back in­to of­fice, they can rest as­sured that one of (PNM’s) first acts would be to in­crease wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates.

“The UNC com­mits that, up­on as­sum­ing gov­ern­ment of­fices, we will im­me­di­ate­ly halt any plan to in­crease wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates at this time. The UNC de­ter­mines its poli­cies based on the needs and cir­cum­stances of its pop­u­la­tion, not on the ad­vice of pub­lic re­la­tions han­dlers.”

Set­tling ne­go­ti­a­tions

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said a UNC gov­ern­ment will act ur­gent­ly to use the free col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process to re­solve out­stand­ing set­tle­ment ne­go­ti­a­tions. She pledged to set­tle ne­go­ti­a­tions in the health sec­tor and con­sid­er prop­er/bet­ter terms and con­di­tions for all doc­tors, nurs­es and oth­er staff.

But she said Im­bert’s of­fer of five per cent to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers was “in­ter­fer­ing with the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process and a se­ri­ous breach of best in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice.”

Af­ter meet­ing with labour lead­er­ship and for­mu­lat­ing the UNC’s Work­ers’ Agen­da, she added, “The UNC re­jects the un­just four per cent and five per cent im­posed on all State sec­tor work­ers and com­mits to en­gage in the free and fair col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process through the of­fice of the CPO.

“The UNC is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing a liv­ing wage to en­sure that all work­ers earn suf­fi­cient salaries to sup­port them­selves and their fam­i­lies com­fort­ably.”

She said the UNC will com­mit to an im­proved health plan for all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers and Gov­ern­ment will al­so fa­cil­i­tate dis­cus­sion on pro­vid­ing a con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion plan for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so pledged to amend the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty leg­is­la­tion for the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion to have suc­ces­sor­ship rights to rep­re­sent work­ers.

Pro­cure­ment process for Cli­co, re­fin­ery, Mag­dale­na

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC was com­mit­ted to restart­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre.

“Up­on re­turn­ing to of­fice, we’ll ap­point a task force of in­dus­try ex­perts to re­port to the Cab­i­net with­in 90 days on a roadmap to restart the re­fin­ery.”

She queried the three bid­ders for the re­fin­ery which Im­bert had an­nounced.

“None of these com­pa­nies are known to have any track record in the re­fin­ing in­dus­try ... and there are se­ri­ous ques­tions and al­le­ga­tions about im­prop­er prac­tices by at least two ... it re­minds me of the Jin­dal fi­as­co: Gov­ern­ment didn’t have the time to do sim­ple re­search,” she said.

“I think we’re go­ing on an­oth­er ma­m­aguy run. Be­fore every elec­tion, they’re go­ing to find some­one to lease or buy the re­fin­ery (but) elec­tions come and go and noth­ing hap­pens.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for the re­fin­ery sale and that of the Mag­dale­na Grand and the Cli­co di­vest­ment to be placed un­der pro­cure­ment law. She said while there are reg­u­la­tions per­tain­ing to fur­ni­ture and equip­ment, there are none re­gard­ing the re­fin­ery’s lands and prop­er­ties.

“We need to move safe­ly and rapid­ly to bring pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion to deal with dis­pos­al of pub­lic prop­er­ty as it re­lates to the re­fin­ery, the Mag­dale­na and Cli­co—and then and on­ly then should the Gov­ern­ment pro­ceed to di­vest and sell,” she said.

“These are huge as­sets and if it is that the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor has $5 bil­lion in con­tracts award­ed and (re­cent­ly) said things took place that can­not be ac­count­ed for, can you imag­ine with these mas­sive things like the re­fin­ery, Cli­co as­sets and the Mag­dale­na? Bring it un­der the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor!

“If you don’t do it, then we’re very clear what you’re up to in an elec­tion year: that you want to di­vest these prop­er­ties to your friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers with­out the over­sight and trans­paren­cy of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.

“I call on the Gov­ern­ment to amend the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act if nec­es­sary to bring this pro­posed di­vest­ment of Cli­co, Mag­dale­na and the re­fin­ery un­der the watch­ful eye of the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor. We de­mand com­plete trans­paren­cy.”

Re­place En­er­gy Cham­ber

De­tail­ing UNC’s plans to re­vi­talise the en­er­gy sec­tor, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged to im­ple­ment a sys­tem to de­ter­mine the fu­el price at the pump “that pro­tects the pop­u­la­tion and keeps the fu­el sub­sidy man­age­able.”

She al­so said the En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T, which has ex­ist­ed for al­most 68 years, had pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed good ser­vice.

“How­ev­er, the cham­ber is now dom­i­nat­ed by large multi­na­tion­als and lo­cal spe­cial in­ter­est groups and the lo­cal­ly owned Mi­cro Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (MSMEs) in the en­er­gy sec­tor are re­al­ly with­out an ad­e­quate voice. Many lo­cal busi­ness­peo­ple have stat­ed they’re afraid to voice their true opin­ions for fear of re­tal­i­a­tion from multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies and lo­cal spe­cial in­ter­ests.”

She said a UNC gov­ern­ment would cre­ate and ful­ly fi­nance the for­ma­tion and op­er­a­tion of a new body to rep­re­sent lo­cal en­er­gy ser­vice com­pa­nies and con­trac­tors.

“The new body will al­so rep­re­sent busi­ness­es that pro­vide goods and ser­vices through­out the en­er­gy val­ue chain. All lo­cal­ly owned MSMEs in the en­er­gy sec­tor will be able to join and use this body to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions di­rect­ly to the En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Prime Min­is­ter with­out go­ing through the ex­ist­ing en­er­gy cham­ber. We’ll re­move all State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies from the En­er­gy Cham­ber and cre­ate a new, sep­a­rate body to rep­re­sent their in­ter­ests.”

She added, “I don’t be­lieve that the cur­rent En­er­gy Cham­ber rep­re­sents and ad­vo­cates for the best in­ter­ests of our State-owned com­pa­nies. These must make de­ci­sions and poli­cies in the best in­ter­ests of cit­i­zens and not for a pri­vate body main­ly con­trolled by multi­na­tion­als. Through these new rep­re­sen­ta­tive bod­ies, we’ll pri­ori­tise the in­ter­ests of lo­cal en­er­gy com­pa­nies and lo­cal con­tent.”

UNC 5 ig­nore leader

While her ad­dress re­ceived loud desk-thump­ing sup­port from her front­line MPs through­out and on con­clu­sion, the five es­tranged UNC MPs who sup­port Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray didn’t join in.

They ar­rived in the Cham­ber to­geth­er about 50 min­utes in­to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress and ap­peared ab­sorbed in their own busi­ness or con­vers­ing with each oth­er while she spoke.


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