Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

At least three Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters are sup­port­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to is­sue fierce warn­ings to her team to stop cer­tain prac­tices and “straight­en up.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, in jus­ti­fy­ing the warn­ing, said groups that “fed at the trough via the PNM” have been knock­ing on Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress doors, and even the fam­i­ly of a for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and PNM min­is­ter turned up at UNC’s meet­ing on Mon­day.

“So, I’m in full sup­port of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter’s call. We came in on a large man­date from vot­ers to do things dif­fer­ent­ly from the PNM,” Padarath said.

Padarath and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John replied to ques­tions about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s fiery warn­ings on Mon­day to some in her team, who she said were al­ready “ca­vort­ing with the same crooked con­trac­tors and lawyers, PNM fi­nanciers and cor­rupt fake elite.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther warned of a “buss head” for cul­prits, since her Gov­ern­ment “couldn’t com­plain about the ‘ghosts’ in CEPEP and you just want to re­place those ghosts with your ghosts!”

She slammed MPs and min­is­ters who may be “favour­ing the same cor­rupt eat-ah-food fake elite... lim­ing in Hy­att, at some restau­rant in town... you’re now seen in Port-of- Spain sit­ting at those ta­bles! All the things you did, some of you did and think you get away in 2010 to 2015 will not be re­peat­ed!”

Since then, spec­u­la­tion has been rife as to who ex­act­ly Per­sad-Bisses­sar was warn­ing — es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing her re­marks about peo­ple get­ting away with “things” over the 2010/2015 term. The names of sev­er­al cur­rent min­is­ters — in­clud­ing those who were part of the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion — have been at the cen­tre of spec­u­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly among “ground mem­bers.”

Padarath’s name has been men­tioned re­gard­ing the PM’s com­ments about the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme, now un­der his min­istry.

How­ev­er, many min­is­ters are tight-lipped on whether they feel per­son­al­ly tar­get­ed.

Min­is­ter John — for­mer Ude­cott chair­man and lat­er Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in the pre­vi­ous UNC-led gov­ern­ment—ra­tio­nalised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance.

“Al­though the UNC’s vic­to­ry was a team ef­fort, no one worked hard­er, was more com­mit­ted, in­clud­ing as a mo­ti­va­tor, strate­gist, and war­rior, than the leader, all while with­stand­ing the most con­sis­tent­ly vile and dis­gust­ing at­tacks from the then PNM gov­ern­ment,” John said.

“So the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter knows how we got here, step by step. She’s al­so clear with re­spect to the wide­spread, broad-based sup­port and hope cit­i­zens have pinned to the UNC’s vic­to­ry. Her cau­tion comes out of know­ing vic­to­ry didn’t come eas­i­ly and that we aren’t in Gov­ern­ment on our own, or for or by our­selves. So lest some of us for­get, it’s a much-need­ed cau­tion.”

Bar­ry: No fake elites, du­bi­ous con­trac­tors for me

Mean­while, Padarath, who was spe­cial ad­vis­er to Per­sad-Bisses­sar when she was PM from 2010-2015, said, “The Prime Min­is­ter is very mind­ful of those fake élites, eat-ah-food lawyers and du­bi­ous con­trac­tors who ben­e­fit­ed from the PNM be­cause of self-in­ter­est in­stead of look­ing af­ter cit­i­zens’ needs. She’s been speak­ing about this for years. Hav­ing worked close­ly with the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, I, too, know who they are, and I avoid them at all costs.

“For­mer prime min­is­ter (Dr Kei­th) Row­ley em­bod­ied his own state­ments when he said, ‘the rich must get rich­er’. That’s how the PNM gov­erned. This Prime Min­is­ter is say­ing that must change — the av­er­age man, woman, and child must be the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the State’s work, not self-seek­ers.”

Padarath added, “I per­son­al­ly haven’t en­gaged any of these char­ac­ters, nor am I in­ter­est­ed in be­ing en­gaged by them. I can tell you those spe­cial in­ter­est groups who were feed­ing at the trough and sur­round­ed the PNM for nine years-plus are unashamed­ly knock­ing at the doors and ring­ing down the phones of UNC mem­bers. The PM is aware of this.

“We even saw the fam­i­ly of a for­mer PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and PNM min­is­ter turn up at the UNC’s pub­lic meet­ing on Mon­day. All in an ef­fort to save their cor­rupt busi­ness deal­ings. We’ll have none of that.”

Padarath said the Prime Min­is­ter was es­sen­tial­ly sound­ing a warn­ing not to fall in­to that trap, since T&T vot­ed against it.

“The days of putting friends, fi­nanciers, and fam­i­ly of the PNM ahead of the peo­ple are over. The Prime Min­is­ter has set the tone of her ad­min­is­tra­tion in terms of how she in­tends to gov­ern for all and not some. It’s a clas­sic case of shape up or ship out.”

Tan­coo stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dra­dath Tan­coo, who was spe­cial ad­vis­er (eco­nom­ic) in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter from 2010-2015, al­so de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments af­ter PNM com­ments on Tues­day.

Tan­coo said, “I ful­ly en­dorse the com­ments made by my Prime Min­is­ter, and any ac­tion tak­en by her to en­sure that the UNC nev­er be­comes like, or aligned to, any of the many crooked and cor­rupt in­di­vid­u­als who robbed this coun­try of bil­lions un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment.

“As a pa­tri­ot­ic son of the soil, and as the proud chair­man of the UNC, I stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Prime Min­is­ter, as should all pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens, in hold­ing her Gov­ern­ment to the high­est stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. This is the dif­fer­ence be­tween the leader and lead­er­ship of the UNC and any oth­er PNM leader, past and present.”

“Change has come. Fi­nal­ly, we have a Gov­ern­ment that is led by some­one com­mit­ted to fix this coun­try from top down and at all lev­els. It is the rea­son why the coun­try vot­ed for her to be­come Prime Min­is­ter and the rea­son why Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar was unan­i­mous­ly en­dorsed as po­lit­i­cal leader by UNC mem­bers.”

Oth­ers silent

There was no re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia from front­line min­is­ters Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (En­er­gy), David Lee (Hous­ing), Ravi Rati­ram (Agri­cul­ture), and Anil Roberts (Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing), who al­so served in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties in the pre­vi­ous UNC-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Mooni­lal and Roberts served as min­is­ters in Hous­ing and Sports, re­spec­tive­ly.

Lee was chair­man at the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, while Rati­ram was gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion.