Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Prime Min­is­ter “de­grad­ed” the Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ments when he re­ferred to them as “imps, pimps and chimps.”

She said that the Prime Min­is­ter’s words were “dis­taste­ful and dis­grace­ful but not sur­pris­ing.” Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Night Fo­rum, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the PM was “lash­ing out” be­cause he was caught “red-hand­ed.”

“Try as he might, he can­not rant and rave and bul­ly his way out of this mess that he has cre­at­ed,” she said.

With re­gards to the 1,600 COVID-19 deaths as of Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for the re­moval of the Gov­ern­ment’s med­ical “pro­pa­gan­da” team.

She list­ed the usu­al pan­el at the Min­istry of Health me­dia brief­ing, in­clud­ing Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards and Epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Av­ery Hinds, call­ing them all “fail­ures.”

“Look at where we are to­day,” she said.

She said she called for changes to the team months ago and was con­demned for it.

“Where are these com­men­ta­tors now? Come out and say some­thing to these fam­i­lies of these per­sons who have since died,” she said.

She said the 1,600 death toll is the same as the three-year mur­der rate and yet no one was called to ac­count.

“You see in this coun­try, any­one who goes against the pop­u­lar opin­ion of the day is con­demned and can­celled be­cause you want to can­cel con­ver­sa­tion and opin­ion. We have now reached 1,600 deaths,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the man­age­ment of COVID-19.

↔—Renu­ka Singh