Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has urged supporters not to get distracted by controversies surrounding Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) or President Anthony Carmona as their main concern should be Friday’s budget presentation by Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
“The budget statement by the Minister of Finance, that is what we have to be afraid off,” the former prime minister told supporters at the party’s Monday Night Forum at Tableland Secondary School.
Persad-Bissessar said since the Rowley-led PNM assumed office food prices and crime increased, thousands of jobs have been lost and the Government has not made a single achievement.
Denying that she walked out of Parliament and abandoned the debate on the Tax Information Exchange Agreements Bill 2016, Persad-Bissessar said: “Let me make it clear that I did not walk out of the Parliament on Friday. I was put out of the Parliament on Friday. I have no regrets because I stood up and said you are telling lies. I could not sit there and allow them to continue to tell lies.
“We didn’t abandon the debate. We left one member Dr Tewarie because he was the next person in line to speak so the debate could have continued on that day but they did not have any intention. They had planned to shutdown Parliament early without passing the bill.”
She added: “They came to jumbie the country that if the opposition behaved badly and did not support their draconian and dangerous position the country would collapse the sky would fall down.”
If the bill is not passed by Friday it will result in heavy penalties between local businesses and US banks, but she said: “So Friday will come and Friday will go but you know what will be the end of the world, the budget statement by the Minister of Finance. That is what we have to be afraid of.”
Persad-Bissessar reiterated that the Opposition supports the agreement with the US but not the bill.
“The bill is to give effect to the agreement but they (government) brought clauses and provisions that are not necessary, not required, not needed by the agreement. They come and put in the bill clauses now to give their Minister of Finance power to go into your bank account wherever it may be, power to go into your financial business wherever it may be. He becomes a powerful maco spy. I am warning you we will not allow these provisions we will not vote for those provisions. they are not required under the agreement with the US.”
Saying for the past two weeks the Government has been coming up with distractions to deflect from the main issues. She said crime remains number one issue with murder toll fast approaching 400.
“In the last budget they allocated $10.81 billion for national security. Secondly, they promised to so do certain things in their manifesto and in the budget last year. Don’t be surprised if they come back with those lies again to tell you we going to do these things. For the entire year tens of billions spent and crime is still on increase.”
Listing PNM manifesto promises she said the Government had failed to deliver, she said not one of the things discussed during the recent crime talks with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had been undertaken.
Claiming that the PNM has a track record of unkept promises, she recalled in the last budget the Ministry of Health was given $6 billion for health care.
“They have refused to open Couva hospital. They have stopped the work on the Arima and Point Fortin hospitals. Please open the children’s hospital. They told us they needed until June, June has come and gone.”
She said if no mention was made about opening of the Couva Children’s Hospital she would be asking supporters to join her in a march demanding that the hospital be opened.
Persad-Bissessar said she had also instructed attorney Gerald Ramdeen to seek legal redress on behalf of the parents of a baby who could not get help from Children’s Life Fund and passed away.
She said Rowley also failed to keep his promise to immediately address the shortage of medical personnel, expedite surgery and expand CDAP. Touching on high food prices, she said: “We are bracing for that as we go to Budget Day.”
Comparing the prices for a list of food items from last year to this year, she said: “This is a basket of goods that would have cost you about $1,100 last year now cost you so much more in vital items to $1,432 on the same basket of items. All of this before we go to budget on Friday. While that is happening jobs are being lost.”