Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar says she does not accept the explanation put forward by National Security Minister Stuart Young after it was revealed last week that he granted an exemption for 39 Honduran workers to come to this country for the Blue Waters Company Limited. 

The workers arrived in Trinidad on January 28, just under two weeks after Blue Waters made a request to the government for the exemption.

After the matter was raised, Minister Young said the decision was not uncommon or inappropriate as was being claimed by the Opposition- saying government had a responsibility to cooperate with the private sector to help stimulate economic activity. 

In a statement on Sunday, however, Persad-Bissessar said accused the government of favoring business interests over citizens who are abroad.  

In yet another statement on the matter, the 

Read her full statement below: 

Stuart Young continues to try to deflect attention from the severely damaging impact of his government’s unlawful and discriminatory exemption policy. 

The Minister of National Security is now trying to hide behind the rationale of “keeping the business sector going” as a feeble excuse for granting exemptions to big business while citizens are being blocked from returning to the land of their birth. This is absolutely unacceptable.

The fact is, while big businesses managed to keep their operations going, hundreds of smaller businesses have shut down because many of the entrepreneurs, skilled employees and specialists employed within them, are unable to return home.

Young’s atrocious policy of unfairly blocking citizens with his arbitrary method of granting exemptions has seen many sole traders, shop owners and business owners unable to return to open their businesses since March 2020 as they are stuck out of the country.

As we enter the month of February, almost one year later, this heartache and immoral act against citizens cannot persist.  

It is time Stuart Young grows up, steps up and brings our people home. He cannot insult his way out of the mess he has created. These are real people, our fellow citizens, who are suffering.

Stuart Young must end the political charades and lies because the same methods which are being employed to let in foreign nationals could be done to bring in our own citizens.

These circumstances have created the case where it is not COVID-19 which has destroyed our economy but the selfish, shameful and evil acts of members of this PNM administration like Stuart Young that has crippled our economy. 

While he can boast about big industries, does he even have an idea of the chaos and loss being experienced in the small and medium sector?

Young’s actions show clearly that the government of which he is part does not care for the citizens of our nation. Their promises from the Roadmap to Recovery were all political gimmicks, because had they been serious, they would have ended their baseless discrimination and bring everyone home.