Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, be­lieves the 2023 Bud­get should ad­dress jobs, fresh pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives to deal with crime and en­sure wa­ter is de­liv­ered to the pub­lic. But the UNC does not re­al­ly ex­pect to see that hap­pen, says UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain, Mooni­lal said he ex­pect­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert would come as usu­al and “beat his chest” boast­ing of achieve­ments. But not­ing T&T’s prob­lems of crime, in­fra­struc­ture, util­i­ties, and job­less­ness, Mooni­lal said, “Any se­ri­ous Gov­ern­ment would have a strate­gic pro­gramme to cre­ate jobs. T&T has a cri­sis of job­less­ness—they must have a pro­gramme to ad­dress this and con­struc­tion for in­stance is a key sec­tor of the econ­o­my.”

“You al­so ex­pect a de­cent Gov­ern­ment to have some re­newed fo­cus, fresh pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives to deal with the crim­i­nal el­e­ment. We may want that, but quite frankly we don’t ex­pect that. All they will do is beat the ta­ble when they an­nounce how much bil­lions for this and that and noth­ing will hap­pen be­cause they are dan­ger­ous­ly in­com­pe­tent,” Mooni­lal added.

“This Gov­ern­ment be­lieves that man­age­ment ends with man­agers. So if we don’t have wa­ter, they say ‘is WASA man­age­ment’; no se­cu­ri­ty—‘is the po­lice’. But man­age­ment goes to the top and the PNM doesn’t want the peo­ple to know there’s po­lit­i­cal man­age­ment. But min­is­ters be­lieve their role is to cut rib­bon, make speech and guz­zle whiskey,” he said, not­ing they were play­ing cards and “kicks­ing” at the re­cent Cab­i­net re­treat.

Mooni­lal said even if the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry gets top dol­lars in the Bud­get, it would not solve the crime prob­lem.

“The so­lu­tion is you need to re­move Mr Hinds ... there’s no ad­vice you can give Fitzger­ald Hinds since he’s struck the po­lit­i­cal ice­berg,” he said.

Mooni­lal said the Op­po­si­tion will be out in full force with ro­bust con­tri­bu­tions for the up­com­ing Bud­get de­bate and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will de­liv­er a full com­pre­hen­sive re­sponse to the Gov­ern­ment’s Bud­get. Op­po­si­tion con­tri­bu­tions will in­clude the NIB’s (Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board) prob­lems and oth­er is­sues.

He said the UNC’s Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions have yield­ed con­cerns with mo­not­o­nous fre­quen­cy on crime, wa­ter, in­fra­struc­ture, drainage, flood­ing, health­care, lack of es­sen­tial drugs and schools 95 per cent com­plet­ed and lan­guish­ing.

Mooni­lal said En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young should have re­port­ed to the coun­try on the Drag­on Field deal in­stead of cit­i­zens hav­ing to get the in­for­ma­tion from Bloomberg, that the gas ob­tained would be used in Eu­rope rather than in T&T.

On the re­cent judg­ment against the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, Mooni­lal pro­ject­ed that 17 oth­er peo­ple and 30 or­gan­i­sa­tions would sue the FIU and this could cost tax­pay­ers an es­ti­mat­ed $25 mil­lion. He warned that peo­ple might sue banks too. Mooni­lal said the re­port of an al­leged probe at VM­COTT of a chair­man and CEO should have been done by the Fi­nance Min­istry’s au­dit unit, Fraud Squad or In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed in Au­gust that the TTPS, In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port are all prob­ing the com­pa­ny.

Min­is­ter Hinds did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s queries re­gard­ing Mooni­lal’s state­ments.