Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get says the PNM Gov­ern­ment, led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, mis­led the pop­u­la­tion with their po­si­tion on prop­er­ty tax to gain their vote in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“You (Row­ley) fooled the pop­u­la­tion and as you came in­to of­fice, you be­gan to un­leash a reign of ter­ror on the peo­ple,” Ro­get said.

He made the com­ment to the me­dia out­side the Board of In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, af­ter he played an au­dio clip seem­ing­ly of the Dr Row­ley while he was in op­po­si­tion.

The voice heard in the record­ing re­ferred to the prop­er­ty tax as “dread­ed”.

It said, “You heard a UNC min­is­ter, I think it was the fa­mous Prakash Ra­mad­har, telling peo­ple that the PNM will bring back the dread­ed prop­er­ty tax. Let me make it abun­dant­ly clear, the prop­er­ty tax has al­ready been dealt with, so for any­body in the gov­ern­ment now to be telling the pop­u­la­tion that this PNM com­ing in­to of­fice will bring back that tax is the high­est lev­el of dis­hon­esty.”

Af­ter play­ing the clip sev­er­al times, Ro­get said, “In case you missed it, that is the voice of the ho­n­ourable Kei­th Christo­pher Colum­bus Row­ley, the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

This, he said, was the rea­son he was call­ing on the pop­u­la­tion to re­ject prop­er­ty tax.

He ex­plained that JTUM has nev­er been against pay­ing tax, but he be­lieves now was not the time to rein­tro­duce prop­er­ty tax.

He said what may be easy for the “one per cent and the mil­lion­aires to pay” will not be the same for oth­er cit­i­zens, who will have to choose be­tween sur­viv­ing and sav­ing their prop­er­ty.

“So that you are see­ing peo­ple lin­ing up like in­no­cent lambs to the slaugh­ter, that does not mean that they agree with it but those peo­ple are afraid. This is a gov­ern­ment that is rul­ing by fear-mon­ger­ing, they dri­ve fear in the hearts of the cit­i­zens and those cit­i­zens have to com­ply,” he said.

In March, the Prime Min­is­ter said he was will­ing to lose the elec­tions over the prop­er­ty tax is­sue.

How­ev­er, Ro­get said as soon as Dr Row­ley calls the elec­tions he will get his wish be­cause the PM and his cab­i­net are out of touch with peo­ple on the ground.

“So, peo­ple have to put back gro­ceries on the shelves when they reach the cashier be­cause they just don’t have the means to put food on the ta­ble but you see the heads of those per­sons in the cab­i­net, Stu­art Young, Im­bert, and Row­ley, the three wolves that lead the pack against hound­ing the pop­u­la­tion, their heads are stuck in the clouds,” he said.

Say­ing the PNM have no con­nec­tion with the peo­ple on the ground, he added, “And they are the same suf­fer­ing mass­es that they will go not too long from now and try to fool them again and ask them to put them back in the of­fice to do what, to con­tin­ue to un­leash more pres­sure.”

Ear­li­er this week, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert an­nounced an­oth­er ex­ten­sion for the pay­ment of prop­er­ty tax to No­vem­ber 29.

Guardian Me­dia sent an email to the Fi­nance Min­istry ask­ing if the min­is­ter will ever con­sid­er meet­ing with Ro­get to dis­cuss some of their con­cerns on prop­er­ty tax. But there was no re­sponse up to press time.

Af­ter speak­ing to the me­dia, union mem­bers burnt pic­tures of Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Im­bert and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Young, while Ro­get’s his song “The Truth” played in the back­ground.