CLQ09272019 - Page 16

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 �� @�� 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 �� While supplies last. Not responsible for errors. ��