(Trinidad Guardian) UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says there should not be any Salaries Review Commission (SRC) increases for herself, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley or President Christine Kangaloo, but the salary increases should be given to the hardworking public servants.
Persad-Bissessar made the call at Monday night’s UNC Anti- crime Town Hall Meeting in Chaguanas.
Noting the SRC recommendations released via a report laid last week in Parliament, Persad-Bissessar said it was not a matter for the Opposition but for Government.
“The Opposition has no say. I said in Parliament last Friday—let the Opposition have its say, what happens? The Government has its way. That is how the Parliament works.
“So that (matter) is for the Government to decide where they want to go. But if it were me, I wouldn’t go down that route at all! What I’d say is this: you see people only looking at the parliamentarians and they work hard, these guys work very hard,” she said.
“But it also covers people like councillors, senior public servants, who work very, very hard. It’s about a few hundred people! They should benefit from it.. You could leave us at the top. Rowley—no, Kamla—no, the President—no. But give the rest of public servants, give it to them!”
Persad-Bissessar added, “They deserve it. But I think he (Rowley) is just feathering his nest knowing he’s going to lose the next election, so … he wants that pension!”
She quipped that she’d spoken on the SRC issue after guest speaker Prof Selwyn Cudjoe also had.
Cudjoe noted that some recommendations for top officials, noting the minimum wage, allowed an average person only $3,200. Cudjoe condemned the disparities in the situation as “when a man don’t have something he go thief… you can’t be moral or law-abiding if you have nuthing, you have no food to eat!”
Persad-Bissessar noted there were 64 murders for the year so far, when there haven’t been as many days in the year.
“Almost every 16 hours in T&T there is a murder…and what the Prime Minister says? I’ll not repeat it …I’m not going to waste my time on a waste of time person.”
She said the UNC’s consultations were participatory democracy, allowing people to speak about their trauma on crime.
She said Cudjoe had given 16 points and together with what former TTPS officer Johnny Abraham and Professor Hubert Daisley gave at previous UNC consultations, people were coming to craft ideas and “we are eager to listen”.
Saying it wasn’t enough to come and listen at the consultations, she called for people to become change-makers against crime by sharing insights with a wider audience, including having their own community crime consultations and brainstorming.
Persad-Bissessar concluded with the new slogan which she said Cudjoe recommended that the UNC use: “Great is the truth and it shall prevail.”
She added, “Great is the UNC and it shall prevail.”
Cudjoe delivered 16 recommendations. This included asking the Prime Minister and Ministers to declare what was their wealth in 2015 and now to see if increased wealth resulted from crime escalations.
He also suggested:
* Declaring 2024 the Year of Crime and having everyone’s efforts devoted to eradicating this, since it wasn’t the exclusive area of Government, TTPS or magistrates alone.
* Having a national statement on crime and how it’s approached as a common goal.
* Strengthening judicial branches, having the DPP’s office more tech-savvy to solve crime.
* Involvement of the entire community for people to find solutions to their own problems.
* Community involvement by top officials and going to communities for people to offer ideas in their own settings.
* Stronger enforcement mechanisms, though he said he had a difference with the Opposition leader on SoEs.
* Need for an iron fist and “surgical intervention” to take criminals down
* Holding parents and absent fathers to be made to pay and be responsible for crime their juvenile children commit. Cudjoe agreed with the Prime Minister that people cannot evade self-responsibility.
* Cleaning up the TTPS, remind the Police Commissioner it was said eight years ago there are rogue elements in the TTPS.
* Attending to black youths’ economic needs.
* Giving jobs, as both UNC and PNM have failed on this, Cudjoe said.
Cudjoe said the UNC’s anti crime conversations are positive and the PM’s dismissal of them as “pappy show” was the linguistic control and intellectual dishonesty of his approach to the important programme and a lack of respect for civic engagements.
Cudjoe said he stands in solidarity with the UNC not because he loved his party and political leader less but “because I love my country more”.
