SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

"We are not blam­ing the last gov­ern­ment. We are in­form­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go what the last gov­ern­ment did. And it is up to you to de­cide if you want them back in of­fice." Strong words by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, as he re­spond­ed to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who said it was dis­turb­ing that af­ter three years in Gov­ern­ment the PM was still blam­ing the UNC for the state of the econ­o­my dur­ing his two-part ad­dress to the na­tion en­ti­tled "Mind Your Busi­ness."

On Wednes­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar al­so filed a mo­tion to de­bate Row­ley's pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment.

Row­ley ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar's gov­ern­ment of wast­ing $29 bil­lion of tax­pay­ers dol­lar and util­is­ing $16 bil­lion from the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny's ac­count.

Row­ley said Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave an ac­count of how she spent the $29 bil­lion, stat­ing that her gov­ern­ment built 80 schools and hos­pi­tals and Row­ley's pre­sen­ta­tion was a "po­lit­i­cal com­e­dy cen­tral".

"So as far as she is con­cerned, burn­ing up $29 mil­lion is a com­e­dy and she can show you where the mon­ey went," Row­ley said, as he ad­dressed the pub­lic dur­ing his Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter at Ex­o­dus Pan yard, Tun­puna on Thurs­day.

He said Cou­va, Ari­ma and Point Fortin Hos­pi­tals were now be­ing paid for through loan arrange­ments.

"So when Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar says to you that she could show you three hos­pi­tals that were built from the NGC bank ac­count it is a lie."

Row­ley said in build­ing the schools, they award­ed "prob­a­bly 80 con­tracts. I don't know the ex­act fig­ure....but it is in that vicin­i­ty. All of those con­tracts were award­ed for the elec­tion in 2015".

He said some con­trac­tors who are still un­der­tak­ing work at the schools have not been paid.

The PM warned the pub­lic that the Op­po­si­tion was "tak­ing them for fools".

Row­ley said there was a map at NGC show­ing where the UNC spent mon­ey in its strong­hold ar­eas dur­ing their term in of­fice.

"So when you make the mis­take and put them back to run Trinidad and To­ba­go you do­ing it with your eyes wide open. How in God's name you could tell me that I tell you about our eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion which gov­erns the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process that we are mak­ing now?...is be­cause they want to lie to you that they don't want me to tell you what the sit­u­a­tion is."

The PM said the Gov­ern­ment was proud of its per­for­mance.