Trinidad MP in leaked audio trades Food Card for support

(Trinidad Guardian) “It’s dis­taste­ful, im­moral, I am in shock about that.”

That’s the re­ac­tion To­co/San­gre Grande MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith had yes­ter­day af­ter a se­cret record­ing of her and one of her con­stituents, dis­cussing the avail­abil­i­ty of a food card/ham­per, be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

 
The MP said the con­ver­sa­tion she had with the woman, iden­ti­fied as Clau­dia Moore, is said to have tak­en place one week af­ter the De­cem­ber 2 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

She added, it is clear the woman does not know the dif­fer­ence be­tween the Food Card, which is a so­cial ser­vice pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices and a con­stituen­cy ham­per from the MP.

In the two minute and 52 sec­onds record­ing, Moore is heard telling the MP that she went to the con­stituen­cy of­fice to ac­cess a food card but did not re­ceive one since her name was not on the list.

Moore ex­plained, “I’m re­al in need eh, I ain’t have noth­ing, so I say lemme go up and see if I get a lit­tle food card at least.”

Jen­nings-Smith re­spond­ed, that food cards were giv­en out based on rec­om­men­da­tions and that was done by PNM par­ty groups.

When Moore said that she ap­plied for a food card years ago, the MP was quick to point out.

“Lis­ten this is not Food Card you know. This is just a ham­per for the Christ­mas.”

When Moore ex­plained that she was aware of that and since she walked with the par­ty groups in the dis­trict she was in need of one.

Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, the MP said she would as­sist the woman. But then the call takes a dif­fer­ent turn when the MP ques­tion Moore’s po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance.

When Moore said yes based on the as­sis­tance the MP and the PNM pro­vid­ed for fu­ner­al ex­pens­es of her grand­child, Jen­nings-Smith, then asks more ques­tions.

“Let me tell you this, the fa­ther and moth­er of that child, I went and give them mon­ey. They went and put on yel­low jer­sey. As well the house with the child, ah doh know if its you ah talk­ing to al­so sup­port­ing the UNC. And if all ya see your name eh com­ing down is be­cause peo­ple have cer­tain peo­ple down as UNC sup­port­ers and play­ing games. I not tar­get­ing peo­ple who vote for UNC. I go­ing to look for new peo­ple. All ya with UNC, stay with UNC.”

Asked yes­ter­day if it was her on the record­ing, Jen­nings-Smith con­firmed it. She said while she gives gen­er­ous­ly to con­stituents, even from her own salary, she al­so de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to give PNM sup­port­ers and mem­bers of the var­i­ous par­ty groups ham­pers.

She said, “I al­so give ham­pers per­son­al­ly and that is done from a dif­fer­ent lev­el. The woman is re­al­ly mix­ing up the both is­sues here. My back­ground taught me to serve every­body. I’m a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, and I swear to serve every­body. But, I al­so be­long to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and with­in my par­ty group struc­ture I al­so do things to pro­vide for them.”

Jen­nings-Smith added, she was even more per­turbed by the se­cret record­ing since Moore was some­one she knew well and was a se­nior mem­ber of so­ci­ety.

“The la­dy is a very old la­dy. I just couldn’t be­lieve that a per­son in so­ci­ety, an old la­dy, who we sup­posed to look up to, who sup­posed to have some kind of moral dis­ci­pline would do this. It tells me what is hap­pen­ing in our so­ci­ety.”

How­ev­er, Moore who agreed to speak with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said she had “no re­grets” over the record­ing and leak­ing of the au­dio.

She ex­plained her side, say­ing she was not aware that the call was be­ing record­ed since she was us­ing a rel­a­tive’s phone.

But af­ter she learnt about the record­ing and lis­tened to the call again she grew an­gry when the MP’s re­sponse which took on a harsh po­lit­i­cal tone.

Moore added, that af­ter Jen­nings-Smith found out the call was record­ed she phoned her and “blast me up say­ing we were UNC.”

“She call back again and start to tell me why you have to put me on record, I ain’t look­ing for you there.”

Moore said: “I ain’t have no re­grets, I could talk open­ly, I feel re­al bad when she tell me that. And I say ‘oh is so’ al­right and I just kill it. Be­cause I know they there to help every­body. Right. And if it come in a case so you could a just gimme the food card if it wasn’t noth­ing. I doh feel no how.”

She added, “I de­cide to put she up any­way. I was go­ing and put she on Face­book yuh know but they beg for she, be­cause ah find she shouldn’t curse me in that man­ner.”

Moore al­so point­ed out that for­mer Chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion while demit­ting of­fice called for both PNM and UNC to work to­geth­er in the area to help res­i­dents and she be­lieves Jen­nings-Smith should have heed­ed that call.

Moore re­fused to say though if she was a PNM or UNC sup­port­er, say­ing it did not mat­ter.

In the mean­time, Jen­nings-Smith said while she does not know if po­lit­i­cal mis­chief is be­hind the record­ing, she has left the sit­u­a­tion in the hands of God.

“One thing I didn’t take any mon­ey, I didn’t take any bribe, its about my­self do­ing things to help peo­ple. I have noth­ing to hide and I have noth­ing to fear,”
she said.