GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Of­fi­cials from both the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance con­firmed no for­mal agree­ment doc­u­ment has been signed on their ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Ques­tions about this were sent to UNC Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cers Dr Kirk Meighoo and deputy lead­ers Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee, Jear­lean John, and the NTA’s Gary Grif­fith but re­ceived no re­ply.

How­ev­er, the po­si­tion was clar­i­fied by oth­er UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials and NTA spokesper­sons.

Fol­low­ing the ac­com­mo­da­tion’s unit­ed dis­play on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form on Mon­day fea­tur­ing Jack Warn­er, Grif­fith and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ques­tions arose as to whether or not there was a signed agree­ment for the arrange­ment.

For the Peo­ples’ Part­ner­ship coali­tion, an ac­cord was signed on April 21, 2010, in Fyz­abad, among the UNC, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple. The MSJ dropped out in 2012, claim­ing the UNC had de­stroyed the coali­tion.

Yes­ter­day, UNC of­fi­cials said the cur­rent ac­com­mo­da­tion was an elec­toral arrange­ment and de­ci­sions were made among lead­ers who dis­cuss and co-or­di­nate mat­ters.

They al­so not­ed state­ments by Warn­er and ILP gen­er­al sec­re­tary In­dra Ma­haraj that the ILP would be dis­solved for its mem­bers to join UNC. Warn­er did not an­swer calls yes­ter­day.

He is ex­pect­ed to be on the cam­paign trail again to­day with the UNC and NTA.

He was billed to hit the streets with the UNC in Bon Air with team leader Brain Baig and is ex­pect­ed to be on Moru­ga on Sat­ur­day.

Gary goes af­ter Mar­vin

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith slammed Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ com­ments on the Op­po­si­tion’s ac­com­mo­da­tion. He re­spond­ed to Gon­za­les, who dubbed Warn­er’s re­turn as a threat to the moral val­ues of this coun­try, via a state­ment de­scrib­ing Gon­za­les as a fail­ure.

“The biggest fail­ure as a min­is­ter in Row­ley’s Cab­i­net, af­ter Hinds, is un­doubt­ed­ly Gon­za­les, who now seems to have the abil­i­ty to fi­nal­ly speak and be ac­tive af­ter three years in slum­ber, hence the rea­son for him be­ing a to­tal fail­ure and un­able to pro­vide the ba­sic needs in his Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties to our cit­i­zens,” said Grif­fith.

He claimed that Gon­za­les was one of the main rea­sons why vot­ers were turn­ing their backs on the PNM.

He al­leged that Gon­za­les could not pro­vide ba­sic needs to cit­i­zens.

Grif­fith al­so had some ad­vice for Gon­za­les.

“When mak­ing a cheap at­tempt to win votes he should re­mem­ber ... Jack Warn­er is just one of over 350,000 plus cit­i­zens that sup­port the UNC and/or NTA, but he holds no po­si­tion of au­thor­i­ty or post in ei­ther par­ty,” he added.

Grif­fith said he was priv­i­leged to have a per­son­al fam­i­ly and was proud of show­ing them off as part of his elec­tion strat­e­gy.