Guyanese await T&T faces its many challenges
election date
the polls in late May. Those in Trinidad are
scheduled by September.
The move comes after the Elections
Commission told Granger in the past
week that it would be ready for elections
anytime after the end of February next
year, three months before these are constitutionally
due.
Granger, 74, has been forced to call
elections at least 12 weeks before due
largely because former government legislator
Charrandass Persaud voted with the
PPP on Dec. 21 to topple the administration
in a stunning no confidence vote that
placed the country in uncharted waters
constitutionally.
In doing so, Persaud easily erased the
wafer-thin, one seat majority that the
governing coalition had been running the
country with since beating out the PPP in
May of 2015. He fled to Canada where he
is a citizen after the vote, contending that
he had voted with his conscience while
denying claims that he had accepted a
$1 million from the PPP and its business
associates.
Granger had initially accepted that the
vote was legally passed in the 65-membetr
single chamber house but the coalition
back peddled on the issue, saying
that Speaker Barton Scotland had erred
in allowing the vote to pass because 34
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Caribbean L 16 ife, Sept. 27 - Oct.3, 2019
rather than 33 votes had constituted a
majority. The opposition had contended
that it was indeed 33. Authorities moved
to Guyana’s supreme and appeals court for
a ruling, with the former agreeing that 33
were needed, the latter disagreeing that 34
was the correct number. Next came the
judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice
(CCJ), Guyana’s final appeals system. The
judges ruled that 33 votes were indeed
what was required and urged that polls be
held in a timely manner in keeping with
constitutional dictats.
In the intervening months, the opposition,
civil society groups and even western
governments demanded immediate general
elections but Granger remained steadfast
that he could not legally name a date
until he was advised that the Elections
Commission was ready with a clean and
credible voters list. He got his advice in the
past week and now appears to now have no
choice but to name a date for the polls.
Continued from Page 1
decisions had to be made.”
The prime minister said foremost
among the decisions was the restructuring
of Petrotrin, the national oil company.
“Some people are not accepting
that we’re going through a very difficult
period,” he said, stating that when
he assumed the prime ministership in
2016, the governor of the Central Bank
told the new minister of finance: ‘We
only have money for three days.’
“However, we did what we had to do,”
Rowley added. “The oil company, which
we own, was not producing enough. The
country was carrying this debt.”
He said Petrotrin had lost revenues
to the tune of TT$16 billion in the last
three years.
“The company can no longer hide
these losses,” Rowley said. “What we did,
we broke up the company drastically.
We created a new company. We created
Heritage Petroleum.
“Since we’ve done that, it’s been doing
well,” he added, stating that last week
his administration accepted a proposal
by the Oilfield Workers Union to run the
new company.
“So, a lot of conversation will have to
change, a lot of investment will have to
change, and a lot of investment will have
to change,” Rowley continued. “And we
have to support the union. We’ll give
them three years, a moratorium of three
years. The government will do whatever
it is to support it.”
But despite the country’s financial
woes, in light of declining local oil production
and the heightened cost of
importing oil, the Trinidad and Tobago
leader said his administration “did not
shut down a single support system.”
He, however, said: “When you get a
loss of TT$20 billion every year, you had
to clean house.”
Rowley also said that “most of the
(bad) things you hear about Trinidad
and Tobago is not true,” pointing to the
republic’s recent hosting of the CARIFTA
games as an example to good things taking
place in the country.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have challenges,”
the prime minister said, “but
we’re not out of the woods, but the country
did not collapse.
“What we do in Trinidad and Tobago,
we do to preserve the Republican status,
because when we took Republic (status),
we took a decision to paddle our own
canoe,” he added on the same day that
the country celebrated “Republic Day.”
“Most of our decisions, we make them
to benefit our children and our grandchildren,”
he continued. “Those changes
are for the better, but there are people
who see them as a threat.
“As long as we make the right decisions,
Trinidad and Tobago will continue
to improve under difficult circumstances,”
he assured.
Continued from Page 1
Gen. David Granger.
Photo courtesy: People’s National
Congress/Reform
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responsible for errors.