Monday August 16,

Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner says the People’s Partnership Government has not done enough for its foot soldiers. He said so on Saturday night, while delivering the feature address at a function held at Saith Park, Chaguanas. 

The event was hosted by Falisha Isahak, the successful councillor for Charlieville in the Chaguanas Borough Corporation.

Warner said the the patience of the party’s grass-roots supporters was “wearing thin.” 

He said many party activists who did the groundwork for the general and local government elections were grumbling that they had not even received a job with the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), and were not benefiting from the “fruits” of their party getting into government.

Warner said he was advised that others were still in control of the URP and were “laughing at us.” 

But Warner said all was not lost. He said within the next two weeks, Labour Minister Errol McLeod promised to restart the URP, changing the operations of this “much-maligned” programme. He added that the URP would be better for the people of T&T. 

Warner said party supporters were concerned about their future, since the People’s Partnership Government was taking too long to appoint people to state boards and to various diplomatic commissions abroad. 

But he urged them to “keep the faith” since the majority of these issues would be resolved by month’s end.

Warner said what was worrisome to him was that a number of people were “crawling out of the closets,” demanding positions on state boards. He said during the election campaign, these people were nowhere to be seen. 

He also commented on the late Dorothy Cummings, whom he described as a party loyalist. 

Warner said Cummings spent her own monies and travelled throughout T&T to support the party. He said in the end, there were only four people from the Government who attended Cummings’s funeral.