'It's act of extraordinary cowardice as PM Rowley not dare to face general Public': Kamla Persad

The former Prime Minister and Opposition leader of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has slammed Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley by calling him a coward for not daring to face the general public and stated he is deliberately hiding from the nation. While criticizing Prime Minister Rowley, Kamla Persad cited, "Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is a coward who is hiding from the nation".

The opposition leader bashed the 'immature' responses of the three Government ministers who spoke at Thursday's news conference to discuss Wednesday's island-wide power outage, saying it was indefensible that Rowley was not present.

She said that it is really an act of extraordinary cowardice that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, who has a responsibility to the entire nation, could not dare to address the citizens and attempted to hide.

"In the act of extraordinary cowardice, the Prime Minister also hid from the nation and never attempted to address citizens as he was once again mission from the press conference to avoid the critical question of the people on the incident of a blackout," she stated. The opposition leader further claimed that government ministers were 'frantically purchasing generators and hiding from the public' and called Thursday's new conference if the government authorities were a publicity stunt.

She stated that the news conference should have addressed what T& TEC's general manager Kelvin Ramsook described as the 'disastrous failure' which led to the blackout and exclaimed, "The press conference was nothing more than an embarrassing PR stunt the Rowley regime is famous for,' she said.

Earlier, she had criticized Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, saying it was 'startling' that the minister began laughing when reporters asked about his assurances that such a massive failure would not happen again.

He even callously stated that the police commissioner could not assure there 'would not be another murder, said Persad-Bissessar.

She said the blackout devastated the perishable stock of businesses already reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and added that it also facilitated criminal activity.