RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

PNM’s cam­paign man­ag­er Ju­nia Re­grel­lo has ve­he­ment­ly de­nied al­le­ga­tions that his par­ty paid mon­ey to UNC coun­cil­lors to switch sides.

The claims were be­ing made by UNC sup­port­ers on the grounds dur­ing Nom­i­na­tion Day yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, dur­ing the nom­i­na­tion fil­ing, Re­grel­lo, the San Fer­nan­do may­or, de­clared, “I swear to God that no mon­ey passed to any can­di­date to cross the floor.”

Re­grel­lo re­vealed that the three UNC coun­cil­lors Samuel Sankar, Mar­cus Gird­harie, and Shel­don Gar­cia, along with the UNC’s chief econ­o­mist Sen­a­tor Tarhaqa Obi­ka, had all vol­un­tar­i­ly switched to the PNM.

He dis­closed his knowl­edge of Gird­harie’s dis­con­tent with the UNC be­fore his re­cent crossover, say­ing, “I have been speak­ing to Mar­cus Gird­harie for two years, and I was well aware of his dis­en­chant­ment. Mar­cus is a strong coun­cil­lor who has a de­sire to make a pos­i­tive im­pact in his com­mu­ni­ty and he saw the ben­e­fits of join­ing the PNM.”

Re­grel­lo ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the PNM would ben­e­fit from the ideas brought by the for­mer UNC mem­bers. “The UNC may have views that we need to take the coun­try for­ward, so I think it’s a wel­come move.”

Re­grel­lo urged in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing to join an or­gan­ised par­ty to con­sid­er the PNM.

Mak­ing an ob­vi­ous ref­er­ence to UNC can­di­date Ken­rick Ser­rette’s at­tire, Re­grel­lo said that UNC mem­bers were ashamed to wear their par­ty colours. Serette wore a bright pink suit to file doc­u­ments for Nom­i­na­tion Day. But Serette de­fend­ed his choice of wardrobe say­ing, “I be­lieve an in­di­vid­ual is who they are through their choice of dress and I am a bright per­son. When peo­ple see me I am the en­er­gy they wish to have.”

While Ser­rette promised to bring de­vel­op­ment to the youth, he could not pro­vide spe­cif­ic project de­tails, claim­ing that every­thing would man­i­fest in due time.

PNM can­di­date Naigum Joseph, who al­so filed nom­i­na­tions at Skin­ner Park, high­light­ed the gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing plans and the leg­isla­tive mea­sures tak­en to ad­dress the is­sue. Ac­com­pa­nied by a Chi­nese drag­on dancer, Joseph ex­plained that he wished to ho­n­our his Chi­nese her­itage on that sig­nif­i­cant day. He em­pha­sised his fam­i­ly’s long-stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the city’s de­vel­op­ment.

In re­sponse, UNC can­di­date Tau­ren Meade, the own­er of Chi­no’s Bar­ber­shop on Lord Street, crit­i­cised Joseph for be­ing dis­con­nect­ed from grass­roots con­stituents. Meade, who had de­cid­ed to join pol­i­tics af­ter hear­ing the griev­ances of his com­mu­ni­ty, ex­pressed con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty to win. He agreed that crime was a top con­cern, stat­ing that peo­ple had been suf­fer­ing for too long un­der the PNM.

In­cum­bent Rishi Bal­ram­s­ingh, who served the Les Ef­forts West/La Ro­maine dis­trict, ex­pressed his de­ter­mi­na­tion to se­cure an­oth­er term and con­tin­ue serv­ing the peo­ple. He said dur­ing COVID he was able to dis­trib­ute 75 de­vices to un­der­priv­i­leged chil­dren.

Drainage is­sues and road re­pairs were al­so tack­led and Bal­ram­s­ingh said his PNM op­po­nent could at­test to his good work as the coun­cil­lor.

De­spite the crossovers, UNC’s elec­tions of­fi­cer Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al said the par­ty re­mained con­fi­dent in its abil­i­ty to win the elec­tions, cit­ing the PNM’s fail­ure to ad­dress the crime is­sue.

“We re­main fo­cused on key is­sues such as the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, un­em­ploy­ment cri­sis, and ris­ing pover­ty lev­els which will pave the way for vic­to­ry,” she said.

Meade’s cam­paign as­sis­tant, Vil­liana Ra­moutars­ingh, ex­pressed hope for fair elec­tions and al­so ac­knowl­edged the press­ing prob­lem of crime in her area.

Mean­while, the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that nom­i­na­tions for all 141 elec­toral dis­tricts were filed last night. Asked why the UNC was pre­sent­ing its slate of can­di­dates af­ter the fil­ing of nom­i­na­tions, Dr Mooni­lal said this was cus­tom­ary for LGE. He said nor­mal­ly for gen­er­al elec­tion, the slate was pre­sent­ed ear­li­er.

Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al al­so con­firmed there was a prob­lem while fil­ing nom­i­na­tions in San Fer­nan­do. She said, “There was an is­sue where­by the EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer was not aware of a pol­i­cy at the rev­enue of­fice. It was re­solved in a time­ly man­ner and all our SF can­di­dates are prop­er­ly filed.”

She al­so called for train­ing for staff.

“I be­lieve there needs to be a lit­tle more com­mu­ni­ca­tion and train­ing be­tween gov­ern­ment agen­cies like EBC and the Trea­sury to avoid these is­sues. We al­so en­coun­tered some in­con­sis­ten­cies amongst the dif­fer­ent ROs but our ro­bust le­gal team was on hand at all times to re­solve is­sues,” she said.

Prob­lems in San Fer­nan­do West

Mean­while, the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that nom­i­na­tions for all 141 elec­toral dis­tricts were filed last night. Asked why the UNC was pre­sent­ing its slate of can­di­dates af­ter the fil­ing of nom­i­na­tions, Dr Mooni­lal said this was cus­tom­ary for LGE. He said nor­mal­ly for gen­er­al elec­tion, the slate was pre­sent­ed ear­li­er.

Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al al­so con­firmed there was a prob­lem while fil­ing nom­i­na­tions in San Fer­nan­do. She said, “There was an is­sue where­by the EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer was not aware of a pol­i­cy at the rev­enue of­fice. It was re­solved in a time­ly man­ner and all our SF can­di­dates are prop­er­ly filed.”

She al­so called for train­ing for staff.

“I be­lieve there needs to be a lit­tle more com­mu­ni­ca­tion and train­ing be­tween gov­ern­ment agen­cies like EBC and the Trea­sury to avoid these is­sues. We al­so en­coun­tered some in­con­sis­ten­cies amongst the dif­fer­ent