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| File: Roodal Moonilal and Jack Warner |
Moonilal told the paper Warner "remains a very distinguished member of our party. He has served as chairman and is very much a part of us—we are not apart."
He added, "We share e-mails on a daily basis; we share information all the time. Whatever has happened has happened, but Mr Warner continues to be a very valuable member of our party.”
Warner resigned as chairman of the UNC the day after he quit as a cabinet minister and later resigned as the MP for Chaguanas West, creating the need for a by-election for the seat.
He has said he would seek the UNC nomination to fight the seat, noting that he has no quarrel with his party, his leader or the government. No date has been announced for the election, which must be held not later than August 9. The UNC has said every member of the party has the right to seek the nomination.
Moonilal, who is a deputy political leader of the UNC, also spoke to the paper about the People's Partnership's three years in government, describing the coalition's performance as “very satisfactory”. He said the first year in office was devoted to cleaning up the “PNM mess” in the construction industry and in the labour movement.
“If one recalls, when we came into office, we had to clean up mess left by the PNM, including over $2 billion in payments to contractors within the State sector, particularly at the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).
“We also had to clean up the CLICO fiasco, which was the biggest challenge to the economic stability to the country in history.
“We had to clean up messes at Petrotrin, HDC and many more, so after addressing those problems in the first year, we really began in the second year to advance our own policies and programmes.
“After three years, we have started a massive construction programme. Anywhere you go in this country, you will see roads, bridges, box drains, police stations, schools and so on being built, and this demonstrates our capacity and our enormous achievements,” he said.
“In my own ministry, we have been able to close off several projects which the PNM started, and start our own. This anniversary meets us with a very dynamic land for landless programme, which is a signature project of the Partnership, and we will be distributing 500 lots of land this week.
“We are opening a school for nursing this week and several schools in the Ministry of Education, so I don’t think people can complain too much about achievements,” he told the paper.
Moonilal also commended Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar for managing a multi-party coalition.
“If one recalls, when we came into office, we had to clean up mess left by the PNM, including over $2 billion in payments to contractors within the State sector, particularly at the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).
“We also had to clean up the CLICO fiasco, which was the biggest challenge to the economic stability to the country in history.
“We had to clean up messes at Petrotrin, HDC and many more, so after addressing those problems in the first year, we really began in the second year to advance our own policies and programmes.
“After three years, we have started a massive construction programme. Anywhere you go in this country, you will see roads, bridges, box drains, police stations, schools and so on being built, and this demonstrates our capacity and our enormous achievements,” he said.
“In my own ministry, we have been able to close off several projects which the PNM started, and start our own. This anniversary meets us with a very dynamic land for landless programme, which is a signature project of the Partnership, and we will be distributing 500 lots of land this week.
“We are opening a school for nursing this week and several schools in the Ministry of Education, so I don’t think people can complain too much about achievements,” he told the paper.
Moonilal also commended Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar for managing a multi-party coalition.
“She has emerged as a strong leader in a coalition government which is different from a strong leader in a unitary party government. Her vision is very clear for the country in terms of diversification.
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