Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar celebrated her 63rd birthday yesterday and following the ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the new $13 million St Peter’s RC Primary School, Pt Cumana, Carenage, she presented Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley with a cupcake. He accepted, but moments later as she departed he gave it to a child at the event.
Persad-Bissessar also presented cupcakes to media workers, saying: “This is not a bribe.” Persad-Bissessar and Rowley each received a rousing welcome when they arrived. Carenage falls in Rowley’s Diego Martin West seat. In her address Persad-Bissessar said at the start of the new school year in September computers (laptops, tablets or i-pads) would be distributed to pupils in “the upper standards.”
During her address she insisted her Government was committed to begin the Chaguaramas causeway project in the next few months. But Rowley, commenting on the project, said: “They are playing politics with the project.” He added: The PNM is not asking for any credit. We are simply asking that people not be misled to think that it was a new project conceptualised by the PP Government.
He said the traffic problem in west Trinidad “is now a nightmare because of what was done by the Government (an apparent reference to the boardwalk in Chaguaramas). “Until we get a new route in Chaguaramas it is going to remain so,” he added. Opposition MP Colm Imbert claimed two days ago the project was a PNM one which was stolen by the PP Government.
Rowley said the project was underway when the PNM demitted office in 2010. “There was a consultant on the project. The route had been looked at and the feasibility was being worked on and the instruction to the consultant was to proceed to prepare tender documents,” Rowley noted. He said the PP abandoned it and was now attempting to resurrect it a few months before the general election.
In a brief interview with reporters Rowley dismissed claims made at the ceremony by Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh that T&T had become the first country where there was universal early childhood education. He said he had to get a copy of Gopeesingh’s speech because “a lot of it is open for debate, but not today.”
On the claim that only 48 scholarships were given before the PP took office in 2010, Rowley said: “That is a joke (because) as far back as 2000 we were offering over 200 scholarships. Every child now have access to a place in ECCE.” Rowley said he was aware of many parents who were paying to get their children into such schools.
“So the generic term could be misleading. It is not accurate to say that every child in this country has a free place in an ECCE school,” he added.