Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc Don­ald be­lieves there is a plot by Gov­ern­ment to sti­fle the coast guard and the air guard of T&T. Speak­ing at a PNM meet­ing at Ma­jou­ba Junc­tion, La Brea on Sat­ur­day night, Mc Don­ald said that thou­sands of peo­ple will be placed on the bread­line be­cause of Gov­ern­ment's cuts in salaries and al­lowances. "I don't un­der­stand the poli­cies of Gov­ern­ment. If they had enun­ci­at­ed a vi­sion or strat­e­gy, we would all be clear as to what they in­tend­ed to do. In­stead there is de­cep­tion, de­ceit and lies and so they cap­tured the votes," Mc Don­ald said. She lament­ed that in every Min­istry the al­lo­ca­tions for salaries and al­lo­ca­tions have been cut. "This would mean that hun­dreds if not thou­sands of work­ers will be sent home. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true with the RHA's where a to­tal of $20.5 mil­lion have been cut from the bud­get for salaries and al­lowances," Mc Don­ald said.

She added: " It is hap­pen­ing qui­et­ly in every Min­istry where con­tract work­ers have been sent home and new peo­ple are be­ing hired with­out the jobs be­ing ad­ver­tised. Is that a Govt for all?" The MP al­so said that two days ago, the forestry de­part­ment re­ceived a let­ter in­di­cat­ing that no one over the age of 60 should be work­ing on that pro­gramme. How­ev­er, she lament­ed that if the cuts had oc­curred in the RHA's alone, then it would not have been so bad. "What is worse is that salaries and al­lowances have been cut in the ju­di­cia­ry, the in­dus­tri­al court, the Coast Guard and the Air Guard. I am be­gin­ning to won­der whether there is a thread of in­ter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty, a col­lu­sion among all those in­sti­tu­tions," Mc Don­ald de­clared.

She added: "There is a plan to sti­fle the Coast Guard and the Air­guard, that is what is hap­pen­ing." She ques­tioned: "What is go­ing to hap­pen with the coun­try's fight against the in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade? What is go­ing to hap­pen with the blimp and the three OPV's that were sent back? What is Gov­ern­ment's slant to fight the drug trade?" Mc Don­ald al­so said that salary cuts in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices were cause for con­cern. "We ask what is the plan with re­spect to fight­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al drug traders. It is not on­ly about salaries of these mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. The Govt has cut pro­vi­sions of med­ical ex­pens­es pro­vid­ed to the Fire Ser­vice by $600,000, the Prison Ser­vice by $200,000 and the Reg­i­ment by $500,000.

The al­lo­ca­tions for uni­forms for the reg­i­ment was cut by $700,000 and the prison of­fi­cers by $500,000. Even in the fig­ures of Min­istry of Fi­nance there has been a $4 mil­lion re­duc­tion in med­ical plan for of­fi­cers," Mc Don­ald said. She added that the bud­get was built on lies and de­ceit. RS