While some citizens may beg to differ, Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, Faris Al-Rawi believes that the PNM has performed credibly in the last eight years.
The party celebrates eight years in office today and Al-Rawi said the Government’s performance was stymied for more than two years because of COVID while they lost billions of dollars in revenue.
In a GML interview, he admitted that people are growing frustrated as they want faster job opportunities and services while the Government has been “grappling with issues of crime and security and people are not feeling safe.”
He said the Government was being hindered in fighting crime because “there are laws we want to use that we have been prohibited from passing” because of the UNC.
The former AG identified not having a parliamentary majority as a weakness for the PNM to pass laws.
The other, he said, was a lack of communication which he promised to improve as PRO.
“I think we can improve on our communication.”
Al- Rawi admitted that there are too many “working poor or people outside of employment,” while the poor state of the roads has been frustrating for motorists.
Comparing the road condition last year to this year, Al-Rawi said they are far better.
“We could have fixed the road but just don’t pay public servants.”
Rating the PM’s performance “as excellent,” and giving Cabinet an “eight out of ten” Al-Rawi said, whether those decisions are “accepted well is another equation.”
Al-Rawi told the media house: “I think we performed a lot of things very well. I accept that that would not yet be appreciated. Therefore the result factor would not be seen so you would get low marks on the result side. But I know the result is coming.”