Rowley Shamelessly Taking Credit for Building UNC Hospitals
Weather reports are warning of a Tropical Wave affecting T&T today, so please—be safe.
If the rains indeed come, it may be a damper on Prime Minister Rowley’s planned opening of the Arima Hospital later today. Or, it may actually be the heavens seeking to wash away his absolute lack of shame for trying to take credit for a project that was commissioned by my previous 2010-2015 People’s Partnership Government.
He did so at a news conference on Saturday. It’s not surprising however, that PM Rowley would be so brave as to utter such a boldfaced untruth despite all evidence to the contrary.
He has a long history of such disturbing, questionable behaviour. As Opposition Leader, he mischievously read out obviously concocted, fake documents in Parliament in the notorious, debunked Emailgate fiasco.
And just a few weeks ago, he incredulously claimed that he did not know who attended a meeting in the same room with him, when he held shady discussions with the US-sanctioned Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and her team of PDVSA officials. But in this case, PM Rowley cannot bend truth to suit his devious political agenda.
The fact is that construction of the Arima Hospital was formally approved by my previous UNC/PP Government on October 3, 2013.
Online media archives will easily show that then Arima MP, Rodger Samuel, had announced this project at the Cabinet Briefing on that day.
He had noted that China Railway Ltd was the contractor in a government-to-government agreement with the Chinese administration, at an estimated cost of TT$1.6 billion.
This contract was reached after, as then Prime Minister, I had held bi-lateral with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his June 2013 State visit to T&T.
Online media archives will also easily show that on Thursday May 7, 2015 I officially turned sod for new Arima Hospital, to be completed in two years.
(http://udecott.com/…/URB-UDeCOTT-SudTurning-ArimaHospital-3…, https://www.facebook.com/…/sod-turning-new…/586117768158368/).
For PM Rowley to now attempt to take credit for this very significant UNC/PP project is a clear admission that his Government has completely failed to deliver any project of worth to the people of T&T.
What is very damning, however, is the fact that they left these UNC/PP projects to languish and deteriorate for the past four and a half years.
They knew that by so doing, it would cost taxpayers’ many additional millions of dollars to bring them up to mark when they restarted them.
They also knew that they were callously and maliciously denying hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens their rights to much needed health care services. They had clearly planned all along to stall the date of opening the Arima and other hospitals, to shamelessly take credit for these projects in an election year.
They had no scruples whatsoever when it came to deliberately fooling and misleading the population in a desperate attempt to win votes. In their warped mindsets, such dangerous political game-playing is justified and par for course.
Truly, one has to wonder—what kind of Government thinks that it’s okay to deceive and deny citizens their health rights in such a cruel manner?
Does the Rowley Government really take T&T’s citizens for fools?
They should hang their heads in collective shame! PM Rowley should also apologize for purposely denying citizens their right to much needed health care, in his desperate bid to score cheap political points.
Indeed, for this, and their myriad of other cruel, callous, corrupt failures and fiascos, the Rowley regime must never see the corridors of Government again.