RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A day af­ter his quar­an­tine end­ed, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date for Princes Town Bar­ry Padarath re­turned to his con­stituen­cy to cam­paign and re­vealed that the po­lice had not yet con­tact­ed him about any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s White Col­lar Crime Unit was ex­pect­ed to speak to Padarath con­cern­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a $3 mil­lion bank ac­count when he re­turned from Mi­a­mi. But speak­ing to re­porters at the Princes Town Mar­ket on Sun­day, Padarath again re­it­er­at­ed that the al­le­ga­tions were all part of a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­spir­a­cy meant to dis­tract the UNC from vic­to­ry.

“This is the sil­ly sea­son. It’s two weeks be­fore the elec­tion and this is PNM machi­na­tions. They are ful­ly aware they will lose and they will get more and more des­per­ate. My hands are clean and I will stand as your can­di­date and I will bat­tle each and every one of them any­time any­where,” Padarath said.

Pressed on whether the po­lice had in­ter­viewed him, Padarath said, “I have heard from no one and I will not be dis­tract­ed from go­ing for­ward. Those ar­rests are PNM machi­na­tions.”

He al­so slammed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for say­ing that the costs were too high to bring in Cari­com ob­servers.

“We have seen what is hap­pen­ing in Guyana and months lat­er there are no res­o­lu­tions. It is a slap in the face, a break­down and ero­sion of democ­ra­cy and to­tal dis­re­gard by the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment to use the ex­cuse that we can­not af­ford to bring in elec­tion ob­servers,” he said.

“This is the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process that will bring change. It has to be trans­par­ent. We can­not have the Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer hav­ing ques­tions over her head as it re­lates to be­ing a rel­a­tive of a PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. You can­not have ger­ry­man­der­ing of con­stituen­cy bor­ders and not have elec­tion ob­servers. If they have mon­ey for sta­di­um and van­i­ty projects as the PNM has en­gaged in, for the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of democ­ra­cy that is a small price to pay for our democ­ra­cy.”

Padarath al­so de­fend­ed UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments that the suf­fer­ing of na­tion­als locked out of T&T was sim­i­lar to slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship. He said many na­tion­als strand­ed abroad by the COVID-19 bor­der lock­down were suf­fer­ing from men­tal an­guish, not­ing that peo­ple as far as Qatar and near as Bar­ba­dos had reached out to him for help.

 “They didn’t have mon­ey to pay rent. They were in home­less shel­ters and could not pro­vide food for them­selves. Many are suf­fer­ing and the strug­gle out there is re­al. The process should have been han­dled bet­ter and man­aged prop­er­ly. Trin­bag­o­ni­ans should have been giv­en a win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty for repa­tri­a­tion and that is what the Op­po­si­tion has been clam­our­ing for,” he said.

Asked about his ex­pe­ri­ence in quar­an­tine, Padarath said it was not a bad ex­pe­ri­ence, as he had been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to self-quar­an­tine in a ho­tel for 14 days af­ter be­ing grant­ed an ex­emp­tion to re­turn home.

“I have of­ten de­scribed my ex­pe­ri­ence as bit­ter­sweet. I have first-hand knowl­edge of what it is like to be out­side the bor­ders. While we re­spect the med­ical ad­vice pro­vid­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to na­tion­als with re­spect to the clo­sure of the bor­ders, and while we agree that the bor­ders should be closed at this time, we are mind­ful that there are thou­sands trapped who can­not come in. They can­not af­ford the ba­sic ameni­ties and they have be­come na­tion­less,” Padarath added.