Kamla: I cannot allow the nation to be held to ransom
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has reiterated that as much as she cares for, and was deeply concerned about the well-being of environmentalist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh she cannot allow the nation to be held to ransom.
“If there were some way I could end this without compromising the better interests of the nation I would, and God knows we have tried,” Persad-Bissessar told the media yesterday in a statement.
“I make no decision and offer no personal judgment without prayerful submission, and I do so yet again,” she said.
She issued the statement prior to start of the Office of the Prime Minister’s Employee Recognition, Long Service Award and retirement function held at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.
“It is far easier,” she said, “for someone who isn’t in the position of making decisions that are detrimental to the country to say, ‘stop the section of the highway’.”
However when faced with the consequences of cost and delay to the highway’s completion to the country, she said, “it isn’t that easy and even necessary as advised by our technical experts whose views and reports do not concur with those of the Highway Re-route Movement.”
She has met with Kublalsingh on more than one occasion, she said, and Government has also held several discussions with him and the HRM, yet there are those who say that if she meets with him again he will call off his hunger strike. “That is not so,” Persad-Bissessar said. “Wayne has consistently said that any action he takes will only cease when he gets his way, that is, work on a section of the highway be immediately halted,” she said.
“As much as I care for Wayne, I cannot allow the nation to be held to ransom,” she said. ..READ MORE
Read full statement: PM Kamla Visits Kublalsingh in Hospital: Prays With Him but Stands Firm on Highway Project