Renu­ka Singh

“The Op­po­si­tion did sup­port the Bail Bill in Par­lia­ment.”

Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to be truth­ful with the pub­lic on that is­sue.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­buff comes af­ter Row­ley said that the Op­po­si­tion’s fail­ure to agree to the Bail Bill is the rea­son for the high crime rate in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties.

Speak­ing at the UNC’s vir­tu­al meet­ing last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar sought to clar­i­fy that state­ment.

She said that the Op­po­si­tion re­fused to sup­port the pro­vi­sion that de­nied bail for 120 days to first-time of­fend­ers.

“We said that we do not agree with this one pro­vi­sion, if you amend it, we will agree and we will pass it with a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. They did not both­er with us,” she said.

“I wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter and I said we are pre­pared to sup­port this, we are pre­pared to waive the Stand­ing Or­ders and say bring it back with­in the same ses­sion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Ac­cord­ing to Par­lia­men­tary rules, a failed bill can­not be rein­tro­duced on the same day, but Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in her let­ter to Row­ley, she said that the Op­po­si­tion would waive that rule if the amend­ed bill was rein­tro­duced.

“(I said) bring it back with the amend­ment and we will agree to it and we did that. We passed it,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the re­quest­ed amend­ment was that if you com­mit­ted cer­tain of­fences, you could not get bail for 120 days.

She said if a per­son was charged with a firearm of­fence they can be de­nied bail for 120 days.

“That is the same law we passed in 2014,” she said.

If a per­son is charged with a firearm of­fence and has a pend­ing mat­ter or pre­vi­ous con­vic­tion, the per­son will be de­nied bail.

“That is what we had in 2014. We agreed,” she said.

“Don’t lie to the pop­u­la­tion and use this bail bill blame game sto­ry,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said to Row­ley.

She said that the Gov­ern­ment thought that the Bail Bill was the an­swer to every crime sto­ry in the coun­try.

“Lis­ten, you can­not lock up every­one in the coun­try. You have to have a holis­tic view in the fight against crime.

She said that de­ter­rents, pre­ven­tions and af­ter treat­ments made more sense,” she said.

“Every sto­ry that come out with crime is be­cause Kam­la did not sup­port and the Op­po­si­tion did not sup­port the Bail Amend­ment Bill. You hear lie?” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so com­ment­ed on Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment of a com­mit­tee to deal with the com­mu­ni­ties. She said while she re­spect­ed the peo­ple on the com­mit­tee, she be­lieved Row­ley was “too late”.