Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has described the recently concluded Agri Expo as “a pappy show inside the NAPA”.
Speaking at her party’s Monday night forum, Persad Bissessar said while she had no issue with the expo itself, the $8 million dollars attached to its execution is an issue as farmers are still faced with a number of unresolved issues including praedial larceny.
She said, “How will that help farmers who have to face praedial larceny all the time?
How has the PNM helped any of the farmers who continue to struggle with high costs of fertiliser, feed, chemicals and so on? Nothing! A talk shop. We have so many of those pappy show talk shops and then no implementation – so we will wait to see.”
According to the opposition leader, a number of fishermen too continue to suffer and “are left completely on their own to fend for themselves out at sea facing pirates, murderers, thieves, and traffickers.”
She said, “They have offered nothing but lip service in some cases and in others they neglect completely the plight of our farmers and fishermen.”
Noting that she has been warning the Government since January 2021 of the looming food crisis, Persad Bissessar said to date, nothing has been done.
“Twenty months later we see that they have now woken up. What I don’t know is whether the Expo is going to solve the problems we currently face…We need real hard solutions to help our Agri sector and not just the pappy show that took place last week. Nothing will come of that event.”
As a result, the opposition leader said the time for talk has ended as she sounded the bells for elections to be called.
“And therefore my friends, we have to say they must call that election now. They must call an election now! Time for talk is done.”
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