Days be­fore she un­veils her slate of lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­tend­ed an olive branch to labour lead­ers ask­ing them to give her an­oth­er chance to get in­to gov­ern­ment.

It was through uni­ty with the Labour move­ment that Per­sad-Bisses­sar won elec­tions in 2010 but al­most a year lat­er, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice pulled out of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

But speak­ing at the UNC's fo­rum held at the Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary School on Tues­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the par­ty was ready for elec­tions and she need­ed help to win.

"We in­tend to have all con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives sworn in on Mon­day and we will an­nounce the lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates dur­ing our Con­gress meet­ing this week­end." She said nom­i­na­tions for gen­er­al elec­tions were now open.

Say­ing the next few months were crit­i­cal, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained, "We are close to the end of the term of the PNM. Nev­er let it be said we did not make mis­takes. We learnt from them. I re­new my oath. Give us the chance to serve and I will re­store the dam­age that they did to our econ­o­my. I will bring un­em­ploy­ment down" she vowed.

De­spite her fall­out with the labour move­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she as will­ing to work with labour lead­ers.

"We will work with the labour move­ment. We will walk with NGOs and CBOs. I want to come and meet you. We have ideas and plans. We will come to your com­mu­ni­ties and draft a pol­i­cy to res­cue TT."

She added, "The labour move­ment will no longer see it­self as an out­sider to lead­er­ship in how our na­tion grows and evolves; we will learn from the past and we will do bet­ter.

She al­so said stake­hold­ers and Ad­vo­ca­cy Groups will find a friend again in the Gov­ern­ment."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the PNM had spent the same amount of mon­ey as when the UNC was in of­fice.

"When we demit­ted of­fice in 2015 the over­draft was $9.7b with the cu­mu­la­tive to­tal at $33.3 bil­lion.

As the end of fi­nan­cial year 2018/2019 un­der the PNM, the to­tal over­draft has gone to $40.2b with the over­draft for that same year be­ing $13.6 bil­lion," she said.

She not­ed that the gov­ern­ment has threat­ened to lock up UNC min­is­ters but the on­ly Min­is­ter fac­ing charges as their own deputy Mar­lene Mc Don­ald.

"That’s fun­ny, the most re­cent po­lice in­ter­ven­tion where cor­rup­tion is con­cerned had a PNM Cab­i­net Min­is­ter and Deputy Leader in the spot­light" Per­sad- Bisses­sar said.

She al­so not­ed that the email­gate scan­dal was far from over.

"The fab­ri­cat­ed emails have al­ready been ex­posed as ut­ter­ly false, and Kei­th Row­ley thinks the is­sue is now closed.

"It is not closed! You call your­self a leader and want this coun­try to think that in your best judge­ment, emails that were very clear­ly fake were used as a po­lit­i­cal tool to un­seat a stronger op­po­nent, " she said.

The Op­po­si­tion leader al­so said un­der the PNM the coun­try has suf­fered and many par­ents could not af­ford to buy books.

"We are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to en­sure that text­books are in school and lap­tops were in school, " she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Row­ley to call the elec­tions say­ing he had failed the peo­ple of T&T.