PORT OF SPAIN – It’s cheap to get drunk in Trinidad and Tobago according to Opposition Senator Wade Mark.
Mark was speaking at the Senate sitting Tuesday in his contribution to a private motion in his name, where the Senate is being asked to debate and consider the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
“It is cheaper to buy alcohol in Trinidad than it is to buy let’s say juices and that is unfair. Beverages for the ordinary people and juices are more expensive today than alcoholic beverages. So you can drunk get faster and it’s cheaper to get drunk, Madame President, than it is to have a light average beverage in this country…I can tell you we would prefer to tax the rich than to punish the poor,” he said.
He chided the Government on imposing the 12.5 per cent tax on items such as books and computers.
Mark said alcohol and cigarette taxes should have been increased and the poor should not have been disadvantaged.
Government, he said, must ensure that policies are pursued in the interest of the working and middle classes.
He noted that the United Nations was attempting through its 17 sustainable development goals was to bring about a greater balance between the poor and rich, to close the gap and bring about more balance in the world.
“As the people’s alternative we are waiting and ready to assume power at short call, at short notice,” he said adding that the Opposition is responsible and is willing to contribute to national development.
Mark also took the opportunity to speak to the importance of the education system as he took note of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s reference to some children as “monsters”.
Rowley had said that “parents were breeding monsters and sending them to the teachers” as he lamented the failing education system in the wake of the threat of a gun attack at the Chaguanas North Secondary School last Friday.
Mark said: “We have to be concerned about the children. Even the Prime Minister of the country is now recognising or has stated I should say that the education system is not working. He described children and students as monsters some of them I should say just as how he described some children earlier on in his earlier incarnation as Opposition Leader as hyenas in the African jungle…I understand the concern not only of him but of many of our citizens in this country in terms of what is happening at the educational level.”
He accused the Government of being schizophrenic by pledging commitment to development goals as it relates to children but yet there was no move to open the Children’s Hospital in Couva.(Express)
