(Trinidad Express) – “There will be no witch hunt but we will ensure that those who have done the crime will do the time,” Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar stated in her first press conference following her swearing-in at Knowsley Building, Port of Spain, on Wednesday.
Speaking with reporters, she said: “We are looking for corrupters because every dollar taken away (by corruption) is one dollar less for laptops for children, for hospital beds. So we will be going after corrupt officials.”
Persad-Bissessar reiterated that she would be having four legal ministries. She said the Ministry of the Attorney General would be curtailed to some extent. It will now deal more with the public law issues and the constitutional law issues.
She said this was why she chose Anand Ramlogan as Attorney General, saying his tremendous experience in public law, administrative law and constitutional law would be an asset.
She said the choice of an unelected MP would allow the office to have less conflict of interest, adding that in some jurisdictions the AG is not a politician at all and comes in as an appointed person.
“As a member of the Senate there is more distance,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said while crime/corruption is top priority, “as the heavens opened” (and the rains and flooding came), she had to deal immediately with flooding, so that was given “day-one priority”.
She said the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) had contacted her and told her that as the tides came in on Wednesday evening, the flooding could worsen. She said this was why she agreed to allow public servants living in South and Central to go home early on Wednesday.
She added that systems would be put in place to deal with the flooding, including having all the MPs out in the field.
“This is why we voted for change. Flooding has been a perennial problem and we need to deal with it,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said she also believed that if the public did not vote for a particular candidate, she should not put them in charge of a ministry.
