Just last week he was telling lies about the highway to Point Fortin stating that the Prime Minister would end the highway in Penal because her intention is only to provide benefits for her constituency.
Rowley made the charge knowing very well that work on the highway was ongoing at the Point Fortin end so it was clear that he was lying. Then he was boldfaced enough to say that the PNM government was building the highway when the new government came into office when the whole country knows that the PP government started that project in January 2011.
On Monday he was telling lies again, this time saying someone wanted a $40 million bribe from a contractor with respect to a multi-million-dollar project at the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA). But he could not provide names or any credible information to back up these are serious charges that were intended to tarnish people's reputations and cast the government as corrupt.
Rowley is a former PNM minister and probably knows how he and his government operated so he is using the same yardstick to judge the present government and its officials.
"And I can tell you that
one of the bidding processes, the lowest bidder was approached for a $40
million bribe. And when the bidder could not entertained it, the
project was shelved," he told the media, according to a report in the Express newspaper.
His statement was intentionally misleading and malicious.
His statement was intentionally misleading and malicious.
Clearly he was again telling lies because in the same report the Express stated that the CDA's CEO Joclyn Hargreaves made it clear that there has been no project within the CDA with that level of expenditure in the past 10 years.
So who told him this nancy story? Was it the same "whistleblower" who sent him bogus emails and caused him to make a fool of himself in parliament? Or was it the same plan like the one he invented about Anand Ramlogan about a visit to New York, for which he had to apologise?
Hargreaves also said phase two of the boardwalk project was less than this claim and made it clear that there is full accountability and transparency through public tendering process. The process, she said, was fully compliant with the tendering policy. Who are you going to believe? A politician who consistently lies or a senior official who is subject to parliamentary oversight?
Rowley cannot continue to lie every Monday morning without anybody doing a reality check on his accusations and calling him out when he lies. And if I were the people involved in the CDA I would sue him for his malicious statements.
Rowley feels that he will win the next election solely by telling lies and offering no policy prescriptions whatsoever.
The government must demand that Rowley start telling the people about his policies on reducing crime, creating more well paying jobs, improving the country's health care services and helping Trinidad and Tobago become a knowledge driven and service oriented society.
Last week Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar stated that the opposition has been "the biggest impediment to delivering services and opportunity to the people of Trinidad & Tobago." She added, "Never before has there been such an uncoordinated, non-performing, unimaginative and bungling Opposition in our history of Parliamentary democracy."
She was right on target! The PP government is working hard at delivering services across the country where people needed them most and it is creating a better society. Rowley and his supporters are obstructionists hoping that their actions would give them a political advantage.
But here is news for Rowley. The people are smarter than Rowley thinks. And they know the difference between performance and lies and slander.
Jai Parasram - 18 February 2014
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