Op­po­si­tion Leader and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, is call­ing for Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rance Deyals­ingh MP, to be fired, over state­ments the min­is­ter had made con­cern­ing the COVID-19 vac­cines do­nat­ed to this coun­try by CARI­COM part­ner, Bar­ba­dos.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh of mak­ing false state­ments dur­ing the Min­istry’s press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day 17 Feb­ru­ary 2021.  Specif­i­cal­ly, she is tak­ing is­sue with his com­ment that the vac­cines were:

“…a gift from the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, which used Bar­ba­dos as a con­duit for vac­cine do­na­tions across the Caribbean…”

How­ev­er, the health min­is­ter has since cor­rect­ed him­self, is­su­ing a state­ment of apol­o­gy on Wednes­day night.

“The Min­is­ter con­firms that the 2,000 dos­es of the As­traZeneca COVID-19 vac­cine were, in fact, a gift giv­en to Trinidad and To­ba­go from Bar­ba­dos.  This was gen­er­ous­ly pro­vid­ed from the stock of vac­cines that the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia pro­vid­ed to Bar­ba­dos for their use. The Min­is­ter of Health was un­for­tu­nate­ly mis­in­formed and apolo­gies for this er­ror,” the re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry read.

The re­lease added: “The Min­is­ter al­so of­fers his deep­est grat­i­tude to the peo­ple of Bar­ba­dos for this kind ges­ture of re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

Notwith­stand­ing the min­is­ter’s apol­o­gy, the Op­po­si­tion Leader is call­ing for his re­moval from of­fice.  The fol­low­ing is the full text of her state­ment on the mat­ter.

Kam­la: Deyals­ingh must go now

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley must take im­me­di­ate ac­tion and fire Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

This is nec­es­sary giv­en the in­ex­cus­able and false state­ments Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh made con­cern­ing the re­cent do­na­tion of Covid 19 vac­cines by the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos.

At a press con­fer­ence on the roll-out of the vac­cines, Deyals­ingh claimed that they were a gift from the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, which used Bar­ba­dos as a con­duit for vac­cine do­na­tions across the Caribbean.

This has proven to be a flat out lie. The truth is Bar­ba­dos gen­er­ous­ly gift­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go a por­tion of vac­cines from their own stock.

That Trinidad and To­ba­go has had to re­ly on vac­cine do­na­tions from Bar­ba­dos is a damn­ing in­dict­ment on the Gov­ern­ment.

If we are to be­lieve the Min­is­ter of Health that he did not know the source of the vac­cines his own Min­istry ad­min­is­tered to front line work­ers, he is clear­ly in­com­pe­tent and un­fit for his job. It per­haps al­so ex­plains the sham­bol­ic man­ner in which the Kei­th Row­ley regime has bun­gled the re­sponse to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

While the rest of the world is mov­ing ahead with speedy vac­cine pro­grams, T&T has yet to ful­ly test the ma­jor­i­ty of our pop­u­la­tion for Covid 19. It is al­so un­clear just how and when T&T can ex­pect to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. At the cur­rent rate, T&T will be the last coun­try in the world to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

It is al­so be­yond puz­zling why the Row­ley regime has not ap­proached the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia for a sup­ply of vac­cines as did the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos. 

Giv­en that the Covid -19 pan­dem­ic is the most se­ri­ous health cri­sis we are fac­ing, the pub­lic can have no trust in the Gov­ern­ment's re­sponse as long as Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­mains in his post. He must go now.

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP
Op­po­si­tion Leader of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go