Watch out, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ “Pep­per Mouth MP” is back.

And even be­fore he lands to­day, Bar­ry Padarath came out swing­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment on how they’ve han­dled the is­sue of strand­ed na­tion­als abroad.

Padarath is ex­pect­ed home to­day af­ter he left Flori­da yes­ter­day.

Around 11 am yes­ter­day, Padarath told the T&T Guardian he was on the plane. Padarath, who’s been in Flori­da since March when T&T’s bor­ders closed, said he was overnight­ing in An­tigua and was due home to­day via a char­ter flight.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing him is his in­fant daugh­ter Se­jal, a US cit­i­zen. He’s ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer for them both to be quar­an­tined un­der state-su­per­vi­sion at a ho­tel at his cost.

On fi­nal­ly be­ing able to re­turn home, Padarath said, “It’s a bit­ter­sweet feel­ing as I re­turn since many Tri­nis from around the world have been reach­ing out to me as far as Qatar and as close by as Bar­ba­dos. The plight of our cit­i­zens caught out­side the bor­der with­out the means to sus­tain them­selves and their fam­i­lies is heart­break­ing,’’ he said.

“The biggest chal­lenge for many is Gov­ern­ment’s lack of re­spon­sive­ness and sup­port. Per­sons have com­plained about no re­sponse from the min­istry, em­bassies and oth­er agen­cies. They’ve com­plained about no chan­nels to send ur­gent re­quests for ex­emp­tions in sit­u­a­tions re­gard­ing life and death. Plus no so­cio-eco­nom­ic sup­port for per­sons hav­ing to re­sort to stay­ing in home­less shel­ters et cetera,” Padarath said.

“Health of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to ad­vise that our bor­ders should re­main closed to mit­i­gate ad­di­tion­al cas­es and I ac­cept that ad­vice. How­ev­er, much more needs to be done to help cit­i­zens. There’s too much talk and pos­tur­ing by the Gov­ern­ment in­stead of re­lief and sup­port.”

He said his first ac­tion af­ter quar­an­tine is hold­ing an in­ter­faith ser­vice with re­li­gious lead­ers in his con­stituen­cy to give thanks and praise.

Padarath, who’s been hold­ing vir­tu­al meet­ings with his cam­paign team, added, “I’ve been walk­ing my con­stituen­cy all term and I’ve been one of the most vis­i­ble, out­spo­ken MPs. There­fore, I’ve done my home­work in terms of keep­ing a close re­la­tion­ship with con­stituents.

“I’ve ral­lied the troops, I en­sured that in Princes Town our house was in or­der for a gen­er­al elec­tion a long time ago, we’re al­so pre­pared to as­sist in oth­er con­stituen­cies. As you re­call, I was the UNC’s co­or­di­na­tor for the 2018 Barataria by-elec­tion—I have a proven track record.”

Padarath said he was al­so hap­py to be bring­ing home with him a young fam­i­ly who has a new­born.

“The cou­ple reached out to me af­ter be­ing grant­ed their ex­emp­tions and I was able to as­sist them with re­turn­ing. Their sto­ry is one of re­silience and faith...COVID-19 has re­mind­ed us to be our broth­er and sis­ter’s keep­er. I wish I was in the po­si­tion to help many more,” Padarath said.

Wel­com­ing him home, his Princes Town con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, head­ed by Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, yes­ter­day said, “Mr Padarath re­mains high­ly-favoured among con­stituents. Bet­ter known in the Princes Town con­stituen­cy as ‘the Pep­per Mouth MP’, Padarath con­tin­ues to demon­strate his com­pe­tence and abil­i­ty to rep­re­sent, voic­ing the many con­cerns of his con­stituents in­side and out­side of the Par­lia­ment, whether it be lob­by­ing for schools to be con­struct­ed or even for con­stituents who’ve been with­out pipeborne wa­ter for months.” (GA)