Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has taken umbrage with claims by Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha secretary general Sat Maharaj that Tobagonian men are lazy rapists.
Delivering the feature address at a People’s National Movement meeting at the Barataria South Secondary School, on Tuesday night Rowley said Maharaj was unfit to lead the religious Hindu organisation and had overstepped his line.
“So when the head of the Maha Sabha sees it fit to sit down in front of his microphone and make a blog to broadcast to the world that Tobagonian men are lazy rapists, I take objection to that,” Rowley said.
During a TV programme on Monday, Maharaj attacked Tobagonians in a very derogatory manner as he addressed the Government's recent decision to lease another ferry for the seabridge.
“Nothing going correct in Tobago; they’re lazy. Six out of ten of them working for the Tobago House of Assembly, getting money from Port-of-Spain. They don’t want to work, and when they get a job, they go half past nine and 10 o’clock they go for breakfast," Maharaj said.
"The rest of them, able-bodied men - they don’t want to work at all. Run crab race, run goat race and go to the beach hunting white meat.”
The video created outrage amongst Tobagonians, including THA Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles and Minority Leader Watson Duke, who has called on Maharaj to apologise. Maharaj, however, has so far stood by his words.
The PM, who was born in Mason Hall, said he would now wait to see who would tell Maharaj “this time you have gone too far. "
"This time, I wait to see anybody in the Hindu community brave enough or strong enough to stand on principle and tell Sat Maharaj you are unfit to lead any part of the community in Trinidad and Tobago,” Rowley said.
Rowley also took offence with Maharaj objecting to the Government paying $263,000 daily for the leasing of the Jean de la Valette to service the seabridge.
“Tonight, I want to say again, as I said it before, this obsession with blaming and naming black people as rapists and run by their pelvis is not a thing for 2019,” he said.
In 2015, as Opposition Leader, Rowley said the then prime minister and leader of government business “organised to put on Hansard that the Opposition Leader was a rapist. Today, the leader of the Maha Sabha goes one mile further (to say) Tobagonians are lazy and this country accepts that because it is Sat.”
Rowley said had he accused anyone of being a rapist, everybody else would have known and responded.
“I have not heard the Leader of the Opposition because she can’t say a word because she is the one who had organised the Vernella scandal. The UNC can’t say a word because that was supposed to be their election strategy. So, talk, Sat, talk.”
He said the country has the potential to go to higher heights, "but those are the people and those are the things that keep pulling us down all the time.”