Kamla: Govt hiding poverty

from Trinidad News

OPPOSITION LEADER Kamla Persad-Bissessar accused Government of trying to cover up growing poverty in the country. Speaking during debate in the House of Representatives last Friday, Persad-Bissessar claimed that Government has shifted its tactics of “statistical conmanship” from the country’s crime to its poverty figures.

She said while Social Development Minister Anthony Roberts has boasted about the country’s poverty levels being reduced by half during the PNM’s term in office, Government was really doctoring the figures “to cover up a crisis” in the country.

Persad-Bissessar claimed that based on the UNC’s calculations which stretched from a European Union survey on poverty in Trinidad and Tobago in 1999, the current data should say that any person who is earning a monthly salary of $1,700 or less “is considered poor.”

Stating that the country has no idea what agreements Prime Minister Patrick Manning committed it to during last week’s Caricom Conference in Washington DC, Persad-Bissessar said it was time to establish a parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs.

Leader of Government Business Ken Valley said when this call was made in 1996 the then UNC government did not submit any names for that committee.

Persad-Bissessar countered that the then Opposition PNM were equally at fault in the matter.