By Chantalé Fletcher
POLITICAL leader of the United National Congress (UNC) Kamla Persad-Bissessar is calling for the Government to immediately reinstate food hampers for families as children are preparing to go back to face to face school.
Speaking at the party’s virtual report of Monday evening, she also called for the roll out of a one-time uniform grant for children returning to school.
Persad-Bissessar said, “This way you will help prevent the pain parents will have from deciding if to buy school uniforms or food.”
Her calls followed the Ministry of Education announcement on Monday that from April 19, all students at primary, secondary and preschool levels will be required to attend physical regular classes.
Persad-Bissessar enquired what was the Government’s plan for people to sustain themselves in these “very difficult economic times?”
She said, “Do you think opening up and removing restrictions is going to take us back to normal?”
Persad-Bissessar stated the pandemic followed by this crisis has placed focus on globalisation and has reinforced the need for sovereignty and security in food and industrialisation.
She said, “So don’t come and cry Ukraine-Russia war. What are you doing about it? What plans do you have for us to survive the global crisis we are undergoing now?”
She said, “If anything this crisis has exposed the failure of the Government for the last seven years.
“They failed to continue the diversification and policies we had started, and they failed to deal with what we had started to earn revenue and forex, sport tourism and medicine tourism.”
Persad-Bissessar made reference to the big stadiums, aquatic and tennis centres which were built to encourage sport tourism, in which T&T could have been a hub.
She said the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility, San Fernando Teaching Hospital and the Point Fortin and Arima General Hospitals were not only buildings to treat citizens, but also facilities to create a much needed foreign exchange and to provide jobs.
Persad-Bissessar said, “The Couva Hospital alone was to provide over 2,000 new jobs.
“Can you imagine, if they did not see it without a spite, malice and ill will, they failed to open the Couva hospital? It took a pandemic for them to open it in a limited way as Covid-19 care facility.
“Instead under them, we lost about 120,000 jobs under this Government. And still nothing to tell us how they will create new jobs.”
She added, “People don’t want a handout, they want to earn so they could take care of their families.”
