President general of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget remains unapologetic for his tirade on Friday against Government as he dismissed allegations that he was a bully. Instead, Roget turned the tables on the People’s Partnership Government, suggesting Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was the bully and not him.
He pointed at the actions of Persad-Bissessar in Parliament on Friday, who, during her statement to the House, released details of an alleged accident caused by the OWTU leader while he was a Trinmar foreman in 1999. She alleged Roget caused injury to co-worker Irwin Toolsie and attempted to cover it with a $300 bribe. However, Roget, who categorically denied the Prime Minister’s statement, said she bullied him by making such as statement.
“Persad-Bissessar,” he said, “used the cloak of parliamentary privilege to tarnish my name and reputation, tarnish the name and reputation of a private citizens who she knows does not have the opportunity to respond in Parliament, so that is the bullying that took place, if any at all.” Roget made the statement yesterday in response to Congress of the People (COP) leader Prakash Ramadhar who, on Sunday, described him as a bully.
“If anybody is a bully at all, it is the Prime Minister,” Roget said in a telephone interview. He said he did nothing to apologise for during the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) “korruption” march in Port-of-Spain last Friday, adding it has been quite a while since he stopped listening to Ramadhar.
Roget said Persad-Bissessar “chooses not to deal with the latest revelation of the assassination plot (against DJ Kevaughn “Lerbz” Savory and allegations of a government official‘s involvement) or the fiasco in LifeSport.” He said he was “undeterred and unfazed” by the Prime Minister statement in Parliament. “In due course I am going to make another statement and respond to it in a detailed way. I categorically deny, as I have always denied that particular allegation.
Roget dismissed calls for him to apologise for the mannequin he unveiled during Friday’s march. Meanwhile, People’s National Movement (PNM) PRO Faris Al-Rawi, also responding to Ramadhar’s statement, said:
“It is conspicuous how quickly the now decimated People’s Partnership can quickly unlock from people that propped them up around the time of the birth of the Fyzabad accord.” He said Government, by the end of its tenure, would have spent close to $300 billion of taxpayers’ dollars and “the average citizen is asking where the evidence of the government expenditure is to be found.”
Al-Rawi added: “It is therefore not unsurprising that the trade union movement will be finding the Government’s story as to wage freezes in need of explanation.” The PNM Senator also described Ramadhar’s statement, as well as Trade Minister Vasant Bharath’s accusation that the PNM and OWTU were undermining the stability of T&T, as a “distracting commentary.”