STANDING WITH PM: People’s Partnership supporters wave flags and display a placard during the public meeting to whip up support against Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley’s no-confidence motion at the Siparia constituency office in Penal, last night. —Photo: DAVE PERSAD

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Kamla: Govt to drop bombshells

By Anna Ramdass anna.ramdass@trinidadexpress.com

THE Government will be dropping bombshells in Parliament tomorrow, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced last night.

Speaking at her constituency office in Penal, Persad-Bissessar declared: "Mr Rowley, the matadors of the Partnership, we have bombshells for you!"

Opposition Leader Keith Rowley, whose motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister will be debated in Parliament tomorrow, said earlier this week he had no "mark to buss" on Persad-Bissessar and the intent of the motion was to speak on Government's misconduct since in office.

Last night, at a public meeting to gather support against the motion, Persad-Bissessar said all the country can expect from Rowley are lies and more "Row-lie".

She dismissed his motion, saying that figures and statistics speak for themselves.

Persad-Bissessar said the latest International Monetary Fund report disclosed that this country will see growth this year.

She said figures from the Central Bank show that inflation and unemployment were down and she boasted that her Government had placed this country on a stable economic path. Persad-Bissessar also promised that development will continue to be people-centred as she promised her constituents that a hospital and sporting centre would be built in Penal.

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, who was among the battery of speakers, said that Rowley has to have a "mark to buss" on Persad-Bissessar and should not take the Constitution lightly.

"A motion of no confidence against a country's leader, the Prime Minister, with such grave legal consequences and implications is not a light matter, it is not a matter that you can simply wake up one morning on a vaps, forget to comb your hair, well he ain't have no hair, and say I go bring a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister," said Ramlogan.

"I want to tell Dr Rowley, you have to have a mark to buss on the Prime Minister if you going to move a motion of no confidence and now that you back-pedalling and you talking like is Play Whe and you ain't have no mark to buss. Well the mark will buss on you!" he added.

With a copy of the first volume of laws of Trinidad and Tobago in hand, Ramlogan pointed to section 77:1 of the Constitution, which states that there are "serious consequences" in filing a motion of no confidence on a nation's Prime Minister.

Ramlogan explained that if the no-confidence motion is passed in the Parliament, the Prime Minister has seven days to resign or the President can revoke her appointment.

He said, if that happens, the President can then appoint a member of the House, someone who commands the majority without a general election and, only if there is no-one, then he must declare a fresh general election.

In her speech, Minister of Gender, Youth and Child Development Verna St Rose-Greaves said time was being wasted in debating the motion of no confidence when the Parliament should be debating the Children's Protection Bill.

She recalled that, 36 years ago, as a young social worker, a mother of three had sought help from Government's social services but was denied by people who judged her on all kinds of issues.

The woman, she said, was forced to go to Carenage and drown two of her three children only because she did not have a third hand to drown the third.

St Rose-Greaves said she is "sitting on volcanoes" as children in this country are in crisis and precious time should not be wasted when laws to protect them should take priority.

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