By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE Opposition has no objection to the State of Emergency.
This was the declaration made by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar in Parliament on Monday who said this does not mean serious concerns would not be raised.
The State of Emergency which was declared by President Paula-Mae Weekes on May 17. The motion by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley was on Matters pertaining to the State of Public Emergency.
She said, “The Opposition has no objection to the State of Emergency given the grim and dire circumstances that the Government has placed the country in…
“Whilst we support it because of where they brought us too, at the same time we reserve the right to raise concerns. We reserve the right to hold the Government to account and we will continue to do that.”
She also added, “I don’t know any leader anywhere would want to strip people of their fundamental rights and resort to a last resort option under the Constitution.”
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley spoke before Persad-Bissessar and she said she was waiting to hear much more information from him.
She said the only reason why Government had to resort to the SOE was because from day one, they ineffectively managed the Covid-19 virus.
And she questioned its plan during the SOE.
Persad-Bissessar said, “Tell us what you will do apart from locking down the country.”
She said no data, science or academic research was presented as to how and why a lockdown will be effective and was essential.
Using information supplied by the World Health Organization, she said, “Large scale physical distancing measures and movement restrictions often refer to as lockdowns can slow Covid-19 transmission.”
But such measures disproportionally affected disadvantaged groups such as people in poverty, migrants, displaced persons and the ones who live in the most overcrowded and under resourced environments she said.
Lockdowns were designed to buy time until more measures could be put in place to deal with the virus but the Government was yet to tell the population of what exactly they intended to do during the SOE.
Referring to several aspects including public information of the SOE declaration and addressing Dr Rowley directly, Persad-Bissessar said, “ You cannot carry out a public information programme by bouffing people, it does not work. From the start you gave mixed messages of the seriousness of this virus. From the very start government downplayed the threat of the virus. Don’t shame the public into obeying public protocols.”
She also spoke about the times when the Opposition attempted to debate the coronavirus in Parliament in January 2020 but the motion was denied.
Persad-Bissessar thanked all the frontline essential workers who have been labouring since the beginning of the pandemic and offered condolences to the family members of the 300 plus persons who have since died as a result of Covid-19.
