RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite an in­crease in lo­cal­ly spread COVID-19 cas­es, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion will go on.

This as the coun­try record­ed five new cas­es to bring the over­all count to 169.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter at­tend­ing Eid-ul-Ad­ha cel­e­bra­tions at the San Fer­nan­do Ja­ma Masjid yes­ter­day morn­ing, Row­ley said he had warned the pop­u­la­tion re­peat­ed­ly about tak­ing pre­cau­tions to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19 but some peo­ple had be­come com­pla­cent.

“The last time I spoke on this mat­ter, I kept say­ing to the coun­try we are still in dan­ger but un­for­tu­nate­ly there were some peo­ple who want­ed to be­have as though it (COVID-19 pan­dem­ic) had passed. You were con­stant­ly re­mind­ed that dan­ger was ahead and we are not in­vent­ing this,” Row­ley said.

He com­mend­ed the of­fi­cials at the masjid for ad­her­ing to so­cial dis­tanc­ing and COVID safe­ty guide­lines.

“I am hap­py to see dis­ci­pline. I ob­serve that up­stairs (the masjid) every­thing was well or­gan­ised, the floor marked, every­one was ob­serv­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing and every­one was masked. This is the kind of dis­ci­pline that I would like to see in the rest of the coun­try,” Row­ley said.

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment will con­sid­er post­pon­ing elec­tions if the cas­es con­tin­ue to climb, Row­ley said, “We will have our elec­tions, there is no ques­tion about that and we will con­tin­ue to be ob­ser­vant and we’re guid­ed by the in­for­ma­tion and the sci­ence. We are not tak­ing de­ci­sions based on pan­ic or sur­mis­ing.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley takes part in the Eid ul Adha celebrations at the Mucurapo Street, San Fernando Jama Masjid yesterday.

Rishi Ragoonath

He ex­plained that the Gov­ern­ment was man­ag­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis in a rea­son­able and struc­tured man­ner.

“There will be no pan­ic re­sponse. We have had a mea­sured and sen­si­ble re­sponse gov­erned by the sci­ence and that will con­tin­ue. We are not sur­prised by it. We are pre­pared to deal with that and that is what has giv­en us the strength and con­fi­dence. We are pre­pared and that prepa­ra­tion is the on­ly sen­si­ble re­sponse,” he said.

Asked whether there will be the clo­sure of bars and cin­e­mas to pre­vent spread, Row­ley said, “We will make any such de­ci­sion based on the facts of the cir­cum­stance. I am go­ing to a meet­ing now. We meet con­stant­ly on this mat­ter. We will look at the sit­u­a­tion and the facts and then we will make bal­anced de­ci­sions. We are not mak­ing de­ci­sions vikey-vie.”

Asked whether CARI­COM or Com­mon­wealth ob­servers will be here for the elec­tion, he said, “As of this morn­ing, we had no ad­vice that they are com­ing. They had dif­fi­cul­ty putting it to­geth­er and lat­er in the day, I will de­clare what will hap­pen. We did make the re­quest but it ap­pears there are dif­fi­cul­ties from all col­leagues around the Com­mon­wealth.”

Ear­li­er this week, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der, cit­ing the new lo­calised COVID spread, had called on Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to post­pone the elec­tion un­der Sec­tion 34 of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, which would al­low for a post­pone­ment of up to 30 days due to the pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, Alexan­der said Weekes de­nied the re­quest and he wrote an­oth­er re­quest let­ter af­ter the lat­est spike on Thurs­day.