The United National Congress has described the Prime Minister’s press conference on Friday as “vacuous” and “superficial.”
A statement from UNC PRO Dr Keith Meighoo, said the presser left citizens even more concerned, especially with respect to national security and the crucial energy sector.
Meighoo wrote: “Dr. Rowley said nothing of consequence and did not address the ever-worsening crime scenario, including the failure of Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher to meet a single of her important mandates.”
“He again sidestepped the non-performance of his atrocious National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds. The Prime Minister relied on rambling bureaucratic language and generalities on crime instead of frontally addressing the relentless slaughter of citizens and the absence of arrests and convictions.”
Meighoo said, “There was no accountability or the announcement of any effective policies or measures but reliance on officialese and verbose speech. When approached by the media on crime, Dr. Rowley put off a response until next week, by which time he will cough up fresh excuses and new finger-pointing even as nationals remain at the mercy of pitiless murderers.”
He said, “His reply was similarly void and inane on the Dragon Gas project since it is now apparent that his saving grace energy project is on the line with the reintroduction of General Licence 44 on April 18.”
“The Prime Minister admitted that he is depending on a “carve out” from the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). That is an acknowledgment that he is beseeching the US authorities to exempt Dragon Gas for its exacting sanctions on Venezuela.”
He added: “Dr. Rowley would not have had to go cap-in-hand to the Americans if his Government had diversified the economy and was not singularly reliant on this project.
The fact that all of his economic eggs are in the Dragon Gas basket is the reason he is hoping the project would survive the incoming US sanctions.”
Meighoo said the PM clearly has nothing to report to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, who remain overwhelmed by criminals and stressed by a faltering one-track economy.