Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been boasting about his government's achievement and told reporters Thursday it is easier to live in Trinidad and Tobago today because of falling food prices."They have fallen. That’s right, and inflation has gone down, too," he said, adding that the cost of construction is also down, making it more affordable to live in the country.
Manning made the statements earlier this week in Couva following a walkabout in the constituency held by opposition leader Basdeo Panday.
He dismissed accusations that the People’s National Movement (PNM) has not done provided for the average citizen, saying he is comfortable with the decrease of unemployment to about the 5.8 per cent.
"We are proud of that achievement. And we are proud of what we have been able to do for the people of this country...Now, there are people who are unemployed and we are trying our best to see what we can to create jobs for everybody," he said.
He cleared up what he said was a misconception about the use of foreign labour on building projects, saying the country had a shortage "of skills of all kinds".
He defended the recruitment of foreigners. "When, therefore, we went for foreign contractors and foreign labour, we did not do it at the expense of local labour at all. We did it to supplement the domestic capability in the construction sector and to accelerate our development programme," he said.
Local contractors have dismissed Manning's arguments saying many of the people who have been imported to work on government projects are labourers. They have said there was never any shortage of labourers in Trinidad and Tobago.
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