RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has chal­lenged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­veal the names of those al­leged­ly en­cour­ag­ing the Unit­ed States to re­voke visas and im­pose sanc­tions on Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Her com­ments came in re­sponse to a re­cent up­date from the US De­part­ment of State, which in­clud­ed T&T among 23 na­tions where Amer­i­can trav­ellers were ad­vised to ex­er­cise height­ened cau­tion.

Speak­ing at the UNC Mon­day fo­rum at the St Mary's Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Moru­ga, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Dr Row­ley of be­ing sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for any po­ten­tial sanc­tions im­posed by the US.

Af­ter show­ing a video of the Prime Min­is­ter pur­port­ed­ly danc­ing, with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro in the back­ground, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “This is the man (Row­ley) who was danc­ing in a con­ga line with (Nico­las) Maduro. That is the worst ben­dover we have ever seen in his­to­ry."

She added, "Tonight, I ask Row­ley who are the un­named peo­ple en­cour­ag­ing the US to take away visas? Where is the ev­i­dence? Every­one warned Row­ley and his crew, and now they are cry­ing about visas and re­stric­tions. The US gov­ern­ment is com­ing for them—the PNM.”

She al­so crit­i­cised En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, high­light­ing his fre­quent trips to Venezuela.

“Stu­art Young went to Venezuela 13 times. He and Row­ley are the sole caus­es of any US sanc­tions on T&T. They are the ones re­spon­si­ble,” she charged.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to clas­si­fy gun crimes as acts of ter­ror­ism has al­so con­tributed to the US trav­el ad­vi­so­ry.

“What did Row­ley think would hap­pen when he stu­pid­ly broad­cast­ed that we have ter­ror­ists in T&T com­mit­ting crimes? The US an­ten­nas go up, and they start look­ing for ter­ror­ists every­where—in­clud­ing here,” she stat­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so out­lined the UNC’s plans to im­prove health­care, fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions, and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty if re­turned to of­fice. She promised to es­tab­lish catheter­i­sa­tion labs (cath labs) in all ma­jor hos­pi­tals to pro­vide car­diac stent­ing with­in min­utes, ad­dress­ing the crit­i­cal 90-minute win­dow for heart at­tack vic­tims.

“Cath labs will pro­vide car­diac stent­ing with­in min­utes of ar­rival at the hos­pi­tal, with­in a 24-hour pe­ri­od—min­imis­ing the crit­i­cal 90-minute win­dow of a heart at­tack,” she said.

She al­so pledged to set up dial­y­sis cen­tres across the coun­try, en­sur­ing ac­cess to life-sav­ing treat­ment for kid­ney pa­tients.

“We will con­struct and equip dial­y­sis clin­ics. We will pay pri­vate providers for emer­gency dial­y­sis cas­es,” she an­nounced.

To ad­dress med­ical mal­prac­tice con­cerns, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pro­posed cre­at­ing a spe­cialised med­ical mal­prac­tice court and a no-fault com­pen­sa­tion fund.

“We will es­tab­lish a no-fault com­pen­sa­tion fund, so af­fect­ed cit­i­zens can get re­lief out­side of the court sys­tem—even if they can­not pro­vide di­rect ev­i­dence of mal­prac­tice,” she stat­ed.

Crit­i­cis­ing Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the econ­o­my, she point­ed out a dras­tic re­duc­tion in for­eign re­serves. “We left them with over $11 bil­lion in for­eign re­serves. It’s now down to $6 bil­lion. Where did the mon­ey go?” she asked.

She promised eco­nom­ic re­forms, in­clud­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al com­mis­sion on bank­ing and the fi­nan­cial sec­tor to pre­vent ex­ploita­tion by banks.

“Fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions must con­vert na­tion­al sav­ings in­to na­tion­al in­vest­ment,” she said.

“This will en­sure the fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign ex­change and make it eas­i­er for busi­ness­es to con­duct trans­ac­tions.”

She re­it­er­at­ed her com­mit­ment to re­open­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery and en­sur­ing fu­el se­cu­ri­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so vowed to re­store so­cial pro­grammes cut un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing free text­books, and more schol­ar­ships.

She al­so urged Row­ley to dis­solve Par­lia­ment and call elec­tions.

She ridiculed the idea of Young be­com­ing prime min­is­ter, say­ing, “Whichev­er way you do it, Stu­art will get the lick­ing of his life—licks like peas.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the UNC's bat­tery of lawyers would take up the mat­ter if Dr Row­ley vi­o­lates Sec­tion 76 of the Con­sti­tu­tion by ap­point­ing Young as prime min­is­ter.