00:00As the House debated and accepted the recommendations of the Elections and Boundaries Commission
00:06Order 2024, the Prime Minister announced that CARICOM observers will be in Trinidad and
00:11Tobago for the upcoming General Election.
00:35Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley says he's not entertaining any other observer entity.
01:03Dr Rowley was at the time winding up debate on the EBC report which was eventually passed.
01:10The Prime Minister expressed displeasure over the sanitisation or lack of sanitisation on
01:15the list of electors.
01:17The last survey done by the EBC, he says, was some 24 years ago.
01:35Additionally, the Prime Minister says electors who have moved residences were not being reassigned
02:01to their new electoral districts.
02:27As it relates to the renaming of seats, the Prime Minister had some suggestions, like
02:31incorporating the name Rio Claro into the Mayaro seat's name.
02:36Before the 2020 election, he said a request was made for the adjustment, but the EBC said
02:42That request came in too late.
03:12Dr Rowley also suggested that the Siparia constituency should be renamed Siparia Debe,
03:21and Pointer Pier should not be removed from the soon-to-be Claxton Bay seat.
03:27We find it a little curious or unhelpful that by just moving one polling division, the entire
03:35name of the constituency has changed, and it's now called Claxton Bay.
03:41I don't know, Madam Speaker, I have not consulted the EBC on this matter, but being familiar
03:48with the constituencies and the populations, I don't know what would have caused the EBC
03:55to think that the community of Pointer Pier should disappear from the name of this constituency.
04:03The opposition leader was the only one to contribute to the debate.
04:07I don't know when and where and how, I don't even know if the Prime Minister is going back
04:12or he's not going back, he didn't tell us that today, but we are reading a lot of things
04:15in the newspapers.
04:17We are ready, and the point is the people are ready and willing, the time will come,
04:22and the people eagerly are waiting to vote you out of office.
04:27And as it relates to the Prime Minister's proposition that the EBC order be amended
04:31to change the names of constituencies, Besant Besasa says in all the years she has been
04:36in Parliament, that has never happened.
04:38And in any event, there's a process for amendments.
04:41If the Prime Minister is coming now to say let's make changes, let's modify the report,
04:47which I am not going to agree to today, I am not agreeing to changing this report, one
04:51because there's a process.
04:52And if you want to change the report with respect to naming, there are far more important
04:58things contained in this report that need to be changed.
05:01Her party, she says, is not happy with the way the EBC has redistributed polling divisions.
05:07Do you know right on the border of Western East San Fernando is what?
05:12Oropuch East and Oropuch West.
05:14Why is it?
05:15And again the EBC gives us no reasons that we never take from Oropuch East or West to
05:22put in San Fernando West.
05:23We always take it from where?
05:24From San Fernando East.
05:25Why?
05:26I mean, you know what?
05:27This is a PNM waterbed, using your words.
05:32The package comes from a strong PNM seat into a marginal PNM seat.
