THC MANIFESTO

[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. [00:00:04] Speaker B: The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5. Time to switch gears to another political entity that is vying for some sort of political win here at the general elections for 2025, our historical one. We are chatting with a gentleman in studio with me this morning, and he's supported by a lovely young lady. And that's what I love about it, you know, behind every great man. Boy. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Come into the microphone. Huh? Bring it to you. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Exactly right. Yeah. [00:00:32] Speaker B: It can see if you can get it to lean forward. [00:00:34] Speaker A: And this is the furthest it could go. [00:00:35] Speaker B: No, no, not that. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Oh, this piece. Yeah. All right. How we doing? Yes, perfect. Sounds good. Nice. [00:00:47] Speaker B: See, when we talking to all your big boys, we want to make sure now, make sure you hear everything, Hearing everything you're seeing. And we seeing you nice and clear. Of course, we're streaming on Facebook. We live there as well. You can look out for us there as well. The Trinidad Humanity Campaign. [00:01:01] Speaker A: That's right. [00:01:02] Speaker B: THC needed to shift a little bit to your left. Okay, you're right. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. Right, that's it. [00:01:08] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:01:08] Speaker B: You perfect. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Right there. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Nice. So let's talk a little bit about who Marcus Ramkesoon is. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Well, I am, I would say, a true patriot of my country. I'm still here. I'm an educated person, and I'm still here. And I don't seek to go anywhere else. You know, I say that because I travel a lot. A lot of people ask me, why do move out and live somewhere else? And you like to come this place and that place. And I'm like, no, I need to be in my country to make the changes or at least try to make the changes that I know we as a country and we as a citizenry need. Because, I mean, we have, as you said, 17 political parties. I'm not alone. There's a lot of people standing up for the rights of people who are the best candidates to choose in such a time period. Well, that's up to the people themselves. Myself, I have three master's degrees. Sorry, three master's degrees, which I've actually completed within the last five years. I say that because a lot of people ask what you all have done as a party for the last five years. And we've done quite a lot as a party. But you ask about me personally. So for me personally, I've completed three master's degrees. I mean, if you're going to vie for a job on a job position, you should be qualified to do it correct. So that is one of the aspects of the academic. And I'm also a PhD student currently in criminology and public safety at UTT. I'm going to switch that to food science, though, because a lot of the plans that we've had for criminology, for public safety and for crime reduction that I was trying to prove by research and my PhD, we've actually gotten our policies across the central government and adopted by central government to the benefit of all citizens. So those things don't actually need to be proved anymore through the research at this point in time. So I'm going to switch to food science and food security, which is another pressing issue for Trinidad and Tobago. I personally consider myself a student of life. We're always learning. Every day is a learning experience. And one of the most famous quotes that I live my life by is, we will never have today again. Understand that, right? When today done, it have no time machine. It have nothing like that. So make the most of today and every day, you know, try to. Try to do the best that you can. Try to be the best person you yourself can see yourself wanting to be. Try and have the most fun with life. Try and do the right things in life. You know, just try and live by a proper good code on every day, you know, don't let a day slip by. [00:03:34] Speaker B: I like that. I like that most people take what you say whenever they attend a funeral and someone dies. Exactly. Value on life and how living, you. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Know, we are alive now, you know. [00:03:43] Speaker B: All of a sudden, you know, my gosh, life is so fragile. So I love that I live by that mantra. But every node is an opportunity to create your own. Yes, I see that every day on this station. Now, let's talk a little bit about your political party. So, young one, when did you form this party? And how many persons do you have with you at the moment? [00:03:59] Speaker A: All right, well, the first time I contested was in 2010 as an independent because we ran a little late because of some bad advice to form the party. So the party was actually formed and registered in 2014. And we therefore say that we've contested the 2010, 2015, 2020 general election. We were actually the fourth largest party out of the 19 contesting parties in the 2020 general election. And we contested the 2023 local government election. So this is not our first time around and no one knew to it. In fact, we didn't even need to attend the mock exercises supplied by the EBC and all that stuff. We went by one retaining officer Collected the forms, photocopied all of them, gave it to the candidates. We know how to fill out everything and all that, already got our signatures, got the ID cards and everything and had a really smooth process. And you know, as I'll put a pin in there and just want to say that we thank the EBC as a party for, I would say, the smoothest process we've had in the last five elections, the last four elections we've contested. They were very quick, they were very efficient, everybody knew the rules. There were samples of the forms put up in the walls of the returning officers as to how they expected them to be filled out. Everything was done very properly. I'm hearing within the public space, of course, or we're hearing in the public space that some persons were not able to get the right forms and do the right thing. Listen, outside of the mock exercise day, because the media keeps putting it that way, the returning officers are there every working day to help us as candidates. I've gone numerous times over the years outside of the mock exercise day and sat down with the returning officer. They check the ID card, they check the forms, they say, okay, you have this right, you have this wrong, you need to go back and do this. Whatever it is, that is what they're there for. So if some people didn't take the time necessary to go and check with their returning officers and get the right thing done, as we just said just. [00:05:48] Speaker B: Now, I can't wait for last minute. [00:05:49] Speaker A: And I can't blame the EBC at all. The EBC this year has been really helpful, really a lot of system. We had one little issue and, and the CEO responded to us very quickly. Right. On nomination day when, you know, they're very, very busy. Right. Responded to us very quickly and got it sorted out in less than five minutes. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Wow, that is, that is incredible. That's great news. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Now, and we're a small party, it's not like we're one of the two major. [00:06:15] Speaker B: So how many, how many persons do. Are you contesting all this? [00:06:18] Speaker A: No, well, and look, I heard you say just now, you know that some of the smaller parties couldn't form 41 candidates or 21, which is the necessary number to form a government. And we've heard from constituents. Well, if you're only going up for less than 21 seats, what you expect to do if you can't form government and all these things? [00:06:35] Speaker B: And before you go forward, let's get to that question very quickly. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Right? [00:06:39] Speaker B: Because I was one that advocated. You're wasting my Time as a person, if I have to vote for you and you just have five, you contest in five seats. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Right? [00:06:48] Speaker B: If you win the five seats. But people, I did not understand at the time what winning that five seats could mean. So let's get to that very quickly. We have limited time as we are going to keep you here for the balance of the hour. With your permission of course. [00:07:01] Speaker A: So. [00:07:01] Speaker B: And we'll probably take a few calls as well. So let's, let's get to what that means. How many seats, first of all are you contesting? [00:07:07] Speaker A: Only three this year, which is less than we've done. Why only three? [00:07:11] Speaker B: What happened? [00:07:12] Speaker A: You know, we were contrast considering an alliance with one of the larger parties. Right. In as much as the two major parties are not some, you know, the ideals is not something that we support. This is why we have a party and we put ourselves, I would imagine, however, after 15 years of doing this, we saw even from the local government election that it seems that the electorate wasn't ready for a third party or a small party. Maybe for this question we're now asking that, you know, maybe that's the main concern in their mind, I'm not sure. But maybe joining with one of the larger entities would have been more politically beneficial. Infiltrate from the inside, if you want to call it that. Right, but look, but we had conversations with a number of other parties and it seems everyone already had their plans in place for what they wanted to do. And with one other smaller party it was already too late because we only got in contact with them the week before nomination day. Not our fault really because we had someone communicating to us that they were in communication with that person since last year and it was and it wasn't true. Okay, so not our fault. We're not last minute people at all in that regard. [00:08:17] Speaker B: I understand that. [00:08:18] Speaker A: So three seats. St Joseph Arangwa, St Joseph, myself Tinapuna, Leshawn Gopi, a young master of science, master of chemistry student in UE and St Augustine, psychologist and Master of Applied Psychology student at UE also. So young bright people we have that we're asking to be putting forward to represent you. So let's go back to the question as to why. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Why three and if you're Wendy three what that means? [00:08:43] Speaker A: Well, I hear one, one candidate use the term king maker. I need to remind the people that an elected official is neither monarchy, meaning king, queen, prince or anything or anyone that is higher than you in any level or any way. Then you can see it. An elected official is your brother, your sister, Your father, your mother, your sister, your neighbor, your friend. Right. Is a regular Trinidad and Tobago person. Some qualified, some not at all. Right. And these are the people you elect to manage the US$20 billion of our economy, GDP every year. Right. This is why. And manage. Right. So really what you do, and I need to remind people, when you vote someone into office, you are hiring because you are one of the one point something million owners of the country and its resources and its monies. All of us cannot manage it at once. So we hire a team of representatives to manage the country, manage resources on our behalf. When sign a deal with another country and give away your pitch leak, they do it legally on your behalf because you have elected them. This is something that, this is why you need to consider which team and which people you elect. Now we get back into that point in a minute. But focusing on the question. Three people, five, ten, how much ever. Right. You can't form government, why give you a vote? Two reasons. Yes, there is a potential that if you win one or the three seats and, and because the other candidate isn't saying this from the other party and the situation ends up where there's a tie between two other parties, then you have a potential to ask, request, take if you want the spot of prime Minister and lead the next government going into the, into. Into the office. And that is all the hope of all small parties, everybody. Right. The next biggest aspect, because a Thai situation is not going, is not necessarily going to happen. Right. So the next best situation is that you can finally have, we as citizens of Trinidad and Tobago can finally have an independent opposition. Do you know that the two large parties in there engage in what we call caucus voting, meaning that all their members have to. To vote according to what the party decides. And this issue, this legislative issue, this, this issue that's going to affect all the citizens of the country. [00:11:07] Speaker B: We know that. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Right. So. And if you vote against your party, you have problems. Yeah, because I thought that wasn't the case. I thought when we vote, we vote for a representative. So if you vote for one person in an area that that person is your mp. He has tenure, if you want to call it that. I didn't know that our law allows the party if that person is part of that party, if they act differently, meaning they go against the party no matter what. Yes. Simply the party could fire that person holder by election and that person could have. Would have to vacate their seat. We voted for representatives and people, but apparently we vote for party by law. That's not Fair. So an independent opposition, one or more people in there to be able to comment honestly on the legislative issues. So that when they come and they say let's increase our salaries and pensions from 20,000 to 80,000amonth. What the 20 was already an increase from a few years and we was already amazed by that. It's like how the gas going up and just now you'll see the electricity going up nine times is the regional average. So whatever you're paying now in the next three years, I'm going to be prophetic in politics, which is sometimes a career killer. But I'm telling you because they told us we're going to bring it about to the regional average. The regional high is 42 cents. The regional average is about 28 to 26, 27 cents. That is nine times what we pay now. So if you're paying $500 every two months, you have $4,500 to pay every two months in electricity in the next two years with your same salary. How that going to work? [00:12:42] Speaker B: Wow. [00:12:43] Speaker A: Who's the people could stop it? Not one of the two large parties. Why? Because all of them have the same financial obligations to their finances. So the billions of dollars getting siphoned right out of the taxpayers money into 1, 2, 3 and handful of companies in the country and outside, this is how it works. I don't know if I, I've never said it to you, but I've said it on the program before. Corruption works in this country in one way, right? As a political party, we are not allowed to have a bank account for the party because we cannot register the political entity with company's office. And to get a bank account, you have to register with company's office, whether profit, nonprofit, whatever it is. So we can't. There's no law for that yet. It's coming, right? But no law for that yet. So what happens to the money if you decide, Hey, I like thc. I want to give as a very wealthy man and I want to give them a campaign donation of $10 million. Presently you go to the bank to transfer the money. You have to declare anything above $1,000 donation, you have to declare that you're giving it. Right? And it goes into my personal account, not my business account. And you know the diff, you know the high problems we have with monies mixing with business account and personal account these days, right? Anti money laundering laws and what you're expecting. This is the law of Trinidad and Tobago currently. [00:13:58] Speaker B: So that's unc, pnm, nta. [00:14:00] Speaker A: That's everybody. It goes into your personal account with no oversight as how you're going to spend it. And it's tax free to you and it's tax free to the person who donated because donation, right, no oversight. So you don't have to spend it in campaign. You could spend it 15 years later when you retire from politics and you decide to go and live in, I don't know, Milan or one of these great places, right. And spend the people's millions of dollars that they donated. But hold on, hold on. Who giving you $10 million? Well, when a contract is valued about $2 million, but you don't give the person who bid the 3 million and $4 million. You give the person who bid 50 million, right? Then that person comes back and donates to you. So you know, somebody would call it a kickback, but it's legal. So it's a donation, right? They donate to you 5, 10, 20 million dollars back into your thing and it goes to your personal account. How you think they spent $200 million in in campaigns the last time it came out in the news and the media was in 2010. 100 million to one of the large parties and 150 million for the other large party. That that's what they spent in campaigning. Our law is that each candidate is only allowed $50,000 maximum expenditure for campaigning. But. And 41 by 50,000 is only $2 million. Right, but how they spending 200 million? Because there's no law for the party expenditure. And isn't that how they do it? Is that the T shirts and that costs in 50 million somebody donates it, you understand? So the candidate, those spend that money. So election expenses return form will only reflect the 50,000. It's all a big corrupted system. And listen, the new representation of the people's bill that was coming, this is one of the things I wanted to put together in our point, Faye. But listen, people ask what we do in the last five years. One of the biggest things we've done in the last five years is stop the representation of the People's Amendment bill from going forward. Because when it was presented to us as stakeholders to comment on, we realized that everything I just told you is going to be changed is the campaign finance legislation they keep talking about. So instead of you have to declare the money, anything over $1,000, they say in any donation now. Anonymous Right. One, two. They're saying that unlimited amounts, right? So in other words, you know, if you're going to bank with 10, 10, a million dollars at all $10,000. You have to declare source of funds. They say, no, you don't declare that as a donation. Right. Imagine that. No source of funds. If it's a donation of any amount. Right. They're saying that when they spend the $200 million that they get and donated for the campaign after the election, 40% the parties could claim back from the public purse. All right, so, so wait, so what? [00:16:30] Speaker B: That's the current system. [00:16:31] Speaker A: No, no, no, that is what was. That is what was the amendment. That was the amendment in the representation of the People's Bill to come. So in two years ago, when it came to us, what I did, I got five political parties together. I wrote 19 out of 21amendments in a proper matrix format and all that they supposed to do like a lawyer, which I'm not. Right. Two other, two other parties commented with two of the amendments and I called all the parties, I told them, listen, take THC off the document, put your party name and submit it to the Parliament. The Parliament got back to me and said, it's the first time in the political history they' multiple submissions of the same thing coming from multiple stakeholders. And because of the correct submissions, telling you you can't have no anonymous, you can't have no unlimited, and you certainly can't take back 40% from the public purse afterwards. Right. Because of that, that bill was kept back in the GSC till today. We've stopped in corruption as best as we could without even being elected. Imagine what we would do if elected. Right. And I have a number of other points to tell you that we've completed and accomplished in the last five years. We without having been elected. But we'll get to that in a minute. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Well, I want to get to it, you know, because I want to get to some of the things as I'm disappointed at the three persons going up for your seat given the fact that you would have done so much groundwork or what I would say research into the electoral politics of this country. What prevents you, and I'm not thinking now for this general election, but for the next five years, what is the THC going to do to ensure that they will have 41 or 37 minimum out there? [00:17:58] Speaker A: Not 37, 21. I heard you say 37 recently. [00:18:01] Speaker B: 21 is to form the government. But I want to push an election because I want you to have extra power and I want you to be in Parliament and be able to make decisions without the opposition having to come and sign up. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Correct. Look, the people who should be in government don't want to be in government because of all the things I've just listed, the level of corruption, the falsities, the mama having to mama guy, everybody and what and whatnot. I want to say having to. That is what those parties engage in and do have to. [00:18:26] Speaker B: All right, you put a pin right as you say mama guy and you say that should. What are you as your party bringing to the table with respect to what we are seeing with our economy at the moment? Should you be able to be a king maker, as it were right now, that's just hypothetical. We know it's not a monarchy, it's a democratic society. But a kingmaker, you know, you. [00:18:47] Speaker A: I get one and it have a tie and say I go in and be the prime. I want the prime minister. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Well, that ain't gonna happen. [00:18:52] Speaker A: No, no, no. That is what has happened there. [00:18:53] Speaker B: If you said, yeah, but you could ask, right. No, no. [00:18:56] Speaker A: If there's a 2020, right, between let's say the PNM and the UNC. I don't like to normally call party names, but let's just say, right, or in this case the two largest parties in the country, the PNM and the Patriotic Front, right. Let's say there's a tie between them 2020 and I get one seat, meaning I win one constituency seat. What happens in a case like that and why Gary is referring to it as the kingmaker is because that person has a choice as to which party they want to give their seat to. [00:19:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:22] Speaker A: The thing. And they can demand the spot of prime minister. [00:19:26] Speaker B: You could ask. [00:19:26] Speaker A: You'll more than likely get it if you want to get. If you, if those people want to get in office the tifa set of money. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Again, no, you can't say that. You can't say, well, no. Even if nobody has been. Has been successfully convicted for stealing money in public office. [00:19:39] Speaker A: No. And that's because I. But I just explained. I just explained why though. I just explained why nobody thief's money in the sense of. Oh, I understand. Going and take it from comes donations and legally, legally. [00:19:52] Speaker B: So you coming around to the. To what you can bring. I looked at your manifesto and it's a very incredible one in the sense that you seek to just not just put out what you want to do, but you explain things. [00:20:02] Speaker A: Yeah. No sentences and promises. [00:20:03] Speaker B: That's right. It was not one liner coming down. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Explain how we. [00:20:07] Speaker B: This is what we're going to do. So let's talk a little bit about education in this country. All right. For one, we have this, this bullying taking place where students are continuously fighting. Teachers are now being asked, be careful. So your child could dead in the school. Now, because teacher, I not playing, right? If I see two female students fighting, I am not breaking up no fight, right? You ain't coming back to accuse me of fondling or mishandling your daughter, right? In the, in the, in the event of a fraca happening. So what is your party going to bring to the table under education? [00:20:36] Speaker A: Any points that I tell you all this morning or today is stuff that we have had just in case they may have been repeated by other parties. We've had these points in our manifesto in 2010, 2015 and 2020. [00:20:48] Speaker B: That was my last question. Because that manifesto. [00:20:50] Speaker A: So it's the same point. Nothing changed until it was the same point. [00:20:53] Speaker B: Because you ain't reached there yet to fix it. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. [00:20:55] Speaker B: So what are you bringing to those who did not read that manifesto, hasn't had the chance to read it as yet. Summarize for me, because I want to talk about health, I want to talk about energy sectors. [00:21:05] Speaker A: So let's talk about big things with education. But on your point of the bullying and stuff that's happening in these schools, how we could fix those things very quickly now, I'm going to be real Frankelman here and tell you, if we got into office, how we do, all right, very quickly, you'd have to put security cameras within each classroom. You must be able to have recording, just as the way students are recording these issues now, because fights and all these things have always happened there, even when you and I was in high school. Now we have devices to record it. And yes, it has gotten more aggravated, in my opinion, and a little more violent, if you want to call it that. But that's where we as a society have reached. Because in my opinion, of poor governance. Right, right. Cameras in the classrooms, better security. You may have to go to the extent in this country, Trinidad and Tobago, of putting metal detect systems and all that stuff for students entering into the compound and all that. Right. That will deter. Those are deterrent actions in terms of getting the student to understand proper social behavior, manners, discipline, all these things. These things are going to be added to the curriculum. And people gonna say, well, you can add manners to the curriculum. No, it's not manners you're adding. Right. We want to refresh and revamp the entire school curriculum. We want to change the hours of school to go up to 4:30, to allow working parents to be able to pick up their child after work and extend extracurricular activities until 5:30. So in case the parent, depending on traffic, all that stuff, they'll have the time to pick up the child. [00:22:23] Speaker B: And that's going to be mandatory schooling. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Yes. With that we're going to remove. When I said a full revamp because think about it, right? We're doing the same system for the last hundred and plus years, right? And no, we are modernizing as a society. So we need to modernize our education to meet the needs of society. Otherwise we're wasting time. What we're doing as a country, we're talking about hate. [00:22:43] Speaker B: 8:00 in the morning to 5:30. [00:22:45] Speaker A: No. Right to 5 to no. 4:30. Right. 5:30 could be extracurricular activities and all that stuff. Basically a daycare center for your children, right. While you're at work until you get them. [00:22:56] Speaker B: Because most of the times they come home unsupervised then. Correct. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Now you're coupling that with no homework. Because homework is a stress on the child. The parent who normally has to do a lot of the homework with the child and the teacher, right? To have to correct all these work on papers and all that. So the extra timing in school will compensate for the homework time. When you go home, you spend time with your family, you develop familial bonds, all that. You have dinner with your family without saying you do your homework. Your child go inside and do your homework and finish it. No, no, no, it has none of that. You sit down and you relax and you eat and you watch TV with your family and you. That in itself prepare for the next school day will increase the social bonds, right? And the social structure of families, the familial structure that we see in separating in this country, right? That is one aspect of it. When you do that, you. The first of all digitization or all any material, course material we keep in books, wise digitization, the people who make the money and printing books in this country made enough. It's time to stop now. You all go retire, right? Digitize it and give it out free. We in the age of technology, this is the direction we have to go. Every child must have a digital device to work with, with the software to prevent them from going on adult sites and all that through the Internet, which we have, right. It is easy to prevent that. Right? And set up a system towards that. The schooling curriculum needs to be changed. Whereas we started off this conversation with the education by saying discipline and how you're going to teach manners, right? So within short periods you can have on a weekly basis at least Courses for Tai chi meditation, right. Qigong, all these different aspects of a child learning self discipline. You can have same manners and discipline courses. Comparative religion courses to teach people respect for each other's religions. Social service type courses that teach people respect for each other and why respect each other in different hierarchies of economic life, of anything like this is important. You don't want. All this is needed to prevent bullying. The guidance counselors necessary, because I've seen that repeated on a number of manifestos since 2010. Mandatory guidance counselors through every school. The teachers, we want the teachers to stay with the students for three years instead of one so they will matriculate with the student to better understand the development of the student, to better understand everything about the student. Guidance counselors with mandatory availability to home visits if they detect a problem with the child. Because all this is about early detection too. They could go home and visit and see what's happening and then if anything is needed after that, child services could get involved and so forth. Right. [00:25:26] Speaker B: All right, now let's fast forward a little bit as we get to the crime in the country. I love the ideas. You actually understand what you're saying, right? Let's talk a little bit about crime that's affecting the society. What is the THC bringing to the table? Should you become the king makers at work? What initiatives are you going to assist with this country to develop crime strategies in order to bring it down? Jamaica is now boasting some 30 something percent reduction in murders. What are you going to do to help Trinidad and Tobago to get to that point? [00:25:51] Speaker A: So I, I'll bring it back to what have, what have you all done in the last five years? Well, I just told you about the corruption thing where we prevent the bill from going forward. Right. In the last five years, one of our original policies was adopted. By the five years and four months, one of our original policies was adopted by the government that brought about an 80% reduction of the caseload at the magistrate courts. A 75% increase of the effectivity and the time in forensics. Right. Millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars saved to the economy in prosecution and incarceration fees because it cost 25,000 TT dollars to incarcerate a prisoner for one month in Trinidad and Tobago. Way more than you and I live by. We freed up the police time, probably about 75% too, to concentrate. And for persons who had issues, we've allowed them now the ability to access tertiary education and jobs. What is that policy, you might ask that accomplished all those great things that the former former AG came out and talked to the nation about tens of times in 2019 just to prove that all those things are true and has happened effectively after the bill was passed, the cannabis decriminalization, my original policy publicly put forward since 2008 and put in forward any manifesto since 2010 and then appointed by the government to do it. 10 months of work, 500 pages plus of work, easily a multi million dollar job. But because I went on TV and said if I get the job, I'll do it for free. I'm a man, I'm a word, I did it for free. And if you think I don't need the money, it's only three candidates $15,000 to for denomination fees, I borrow five. So I need the money but I refuse it because it's a service for Trinidad and Tobago. That's how you know my integrity and listen. Both the PNM and UNC because of my history with working with governments in this country knows my integrity. That is one of the reasons they don't want the THC or Marcus Ramke student to join with them. As one party of one of those parties said, I won't say which one. Marcus won't conform. All right, no, no, no, we can't move forward. [00:27:52] Speaker B: We still on the crime. [00:27:53] Speaker A: Yes, that was just the cannabis thing. We didn't just do that. We had a 20 point policy for crime reduction way back from 2010, also 2015 and we finally pushed it to save time. I got it in the hands of the right person. A person who was on the Prime Minister's team for the crime reduction plans. He was most impressed by it and he's the one that got it forward. After he put it forward, which was 2022, we started hearing the then commissioner talk about increased presence and visibility, which is words she's never used before. We've seen the increased presence and visibility up to now. You see them more on the highways, more patrols, more everything, right. These scanners that came out and I said these scanners that they was using, the Chinese scanners they was going to use wouldn't detect anything in the container because of the depth they could see inside. They need to use the Smiths detection. Lo and behold we get the Smith's detection, right? The camera systems, remember when, when for the whole lge I promoted this on video. I went on the three TV stations. The point was if elected to council, we take the council money and put up 100 to a thousand cameras in the area and get the monitoring equipment for the police and have them monitor it. People ask all kind of questions how the police come on. I say they're asking for that. Tinopuna Chamber of Commerce picked up the idea. Tinapuna is now doing it. This is how, if you remember, they find the bandit cameras and the post and what. And what. Not looking at it because they were doing feasibility to see where to put the cameras. So the camera is issue that we pushed for 15 years. We finally got it out last year. And police polygraph, when last you told. When you ever told you to hear the police say, yeah, we're going to DO polygraph since 2010. We're pushing it. So because of that gentleman who was working under the prime minister in that commission, because of him being impressed with our plans and because of him pushing it, because we pushed it to the Minister of National Security, we pushed it to the commissioner of Police, we even wrote to the Prime Minister and I guess he never got the letter right. Nobody took us on except that guy and he got it through. And that's all those accomplishments have come from the plans that we've put forward. So we've accomplished a lot in five years. [00:29:39] Speaker B: And I must congratulate you now. [00:29:41] Speaker A: But one more Jamaica, you said the next aspect of that plan would have been to place army officers with police just as we have them working in tandem with blocks, miniature roadblocks if you want to call it that, are the entrances and exits to the high crime areas and the areas where a lot of criminals apparently due to statistics from what we can see from research residency, just like they do in Jamaica in the hills of Montego Bay where it's very dangerous. Right down on the coast of Montego Bay is where all the tourists are. But right up on the hills behind here, very dangerous area, right? And when you stay up there, because you can't afford to stay in the hotel, so you have to rent place cheap, like me, right? You have to go through blocks, right? Meaning roadblocks. And at every entrance, every exit and them road have plenty corners. And then they put multiple. So the people who come in, in and out of there are always subject to random search. You think the criminals, they're coming out with their big guns to commit crime. If they know they have police and army with big guns on them waiting for them to search the vehicle. And that is why they have the 30% reduction in murders. It's happened through Montego especially. That is the method they apply. That is the method we can apply. That is the method we've been pushing. And that is something we need to apply because we have more than enough resources. And that will what, we're going to stay in a state of emergency for the rest of our life? Oh, we're not affecting tourism because Trinidad do have tourism. But what about Tobago? The warnings that the governments give for their tourists not to come to the country is not against Trinidad. You know, don't come to Trinidad and Tobago because they're in a state of emergency. You're killing the tourism at the same time you're talking about it. I don't understand how people don't realize that they hire in a poor management team. If you have a business and you hire a manager because your business get big, right? Or managers and the managers come and say, we're gonna sell the business and we're gonna give you a little something every month, you know, you're making a million dollars a month. And they say, all right, we're gonna sell the business and give you $200,000 a month. Now, if they say they're gonna sell the business and get 10 million a month, okay, cool. But they're doing that. They tend you less. What you gonna do? You're gonna fire them? You can ask them if they want to mine. We hire people to manage our public resources. And so far, all I hear about is privatization. Why? Because they can't manage. [00:31:41] Speaker B: So let me ask you a question as you talk about that. How would your party assist with the sustainability of the economy given the fact that this Dragon Gas deal is now off the table? All right. What would you do to diversify the economy in this country? [00:31:53] Speaker A: Diversification will come too. But before diversification, we don't have much. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Time to hit me quickly. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Audits, real quick, right? Because look, we've been pushing audits and now we finally see in a country that is doing it. Look what Elon doing in these states, right? Not that I'm for that government or that party or anything like that, but we look at actions of things that are happening right now. [00:32:08] Speaker B: Elon, fall out with drums. Is there a scene going on with you? [00:32:11] Speaker A: But what we would do is audit all the past contracts, the things that are happening still. Everything that we can audit and put to court. Because we know. [00:32:19] Speaker B: But that's coming about with transparency. But how are you going to sustain the economy? How are you going to bring revenue up? Because right now we operate in a deficit budget. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Renewable energies are something that we need to look at for ourselves, but that is not exportable. What we're going to do Exactly. That's one aspect is to build out processing and cottage. We intend to bring about about 30,000 jobs through agriculture, small agriculture and microagriculture. This will be true from the prison system. Come down to anybody who don't have nothing to do and anybody who needs a job and anybody who really, really had. They have a family they have to support. We'll train them, we'll do the proper thing. Because we need to bring about food security. If we have another pandemic that was. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Already on the table under the pnm. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Under the PNM for how many years. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Now they have done it. I spoke with the ministers recently and they are actually into that type of thing. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Do let me explain. Okay. And what, what has he said to you? [00:33:10] Speaker B: Well, he did talk about the, the, the, the housing, right? [00:33:13] Speaker A: How many, how many people? [00:33:15] Speaker B: I can't remember how many thousands of persons. He said it was 2000, 2000. [00:33:19] Speaker A: When they have their programs, right? [00:33:21] Speaker B: It's a couple thousand persons already embellish, embarked on the program. [00:33:24] Speaker A: I have a few people that have done that, that program, right? Homestead. Homestead program. [00:33:29] Speaker B: That's the homestead program. [00:33:30] Speaker A: If they've done a couple thousand, that's really good. But we need to do a lot more because a couple of thousand in ten years is nowhere near enough. You need to do about 10,000 a year, right, to be able to achieve food sustainability. Because right now we import everything. You know, we used to produce 30% of our rice and just, just in Southern Moruga and the little small, now we imported, we could produce 100% of rice. Now I seen everything we consume will be able to produce. But let's look at it this way. Everybody buying lamb and lamb chops be from Australia because of the type of lamb, right? We had a man. We have a number of illegal animals in the country, right? I'll go so far as to tell the story of a man in South Trinidad who had a silverback gorilla in his house that I saw with my own eyes when I was younger, right? And if all those things could reach in the country, we could damn well bring the right lamb and the right cow and the right to get the right beef and all them things instead of suffering with what we suffer in here and encourage those industries. But government has to finance those types of large farming industries to be able to get it done. Look at the Baruga processing plant, but it empty still for the last year. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Before you continue, I have to ask you this very, very quickly, this answer, all right? You talk about agriculture with sustaining the Economy and part of your diversification plans, outside of agriculture, what else does the THC have? [00:34:45] Speaker A: Alcohol is going to come out of the supermarkets. So because we need to stop desensitizing our children trade, we're going to set up dedicated liquor stores and dedicated tobacco stores, right? Like what they do in Europe and in Canada and stuff. That in itself will bring about a number of jobs and a number of opportunities for people to get businesses. We're going to start an entrepreneurship program. So if you as a person you say, look, I have nothing, but I know I could cook a good burger and I want to set up a burger stuff. He'll come, we'll help you with a business proposal. We'll set it up ourselves and we'll finance it at a zero with zero interest loans, right? We'll set you up to be able to pay us back the capital. [00:35:12] Speaker B: But this is where we disagree. Now when I spoke with, with, with the minister Foster comments, they talk about the 20 gr, the twenty thousand dollar grant because to put you in the best financial position. [00:35:24] Speaker A: No, you can't give people, you know. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Talking about a loan with zero interest, right? How is that beating the government? [00:35:29] Speaker A: Because that allows the government and the persons who's working within that sector of the public service, which we'll have to establish, of course, right? To follow up and work with these people to help them establish themselves. Because a lot of the times grants end up becoming zero and the person come back for with nothing. So you have to help somebody. Because you cannot expect a poor man with no real education to become a today to become a businessman or a CEO tomorrow without some help. He don't know how to register his business. He don't know how to set up his bank account. Because we're not taught this in school. All of which come in in our curriculum, by the way, how to understand laws and all these things. [00:36:01] Speaker B: Under education. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Under education. But, but you need. No, no, no. But within this, you need to help that person and set up work with the. If it's a farmer, if it's a man, want to make burgers, anything to work and show him how to build a business plan. Not just go and build it and come back, you know. No, you have to work with him. Like how we used to do the taxes for people long time. We want to bring back that too, right? Because right now hire the same accountants from outside and bring them into the office and let them help people with the taxes. Because you're making things more difficult in the age of digitization. You're not considering the reality of the population too. Right. So in this regard, we have the. The ability to work to bring back the economy. We have the ability to work to bring back security. Right? We have the. Again, only the small parties will do it because the larger parties have no interest because all they seek right now is finances and finance and the partners. [00:36:43] Speaker B: Marcus, I'm out of time. I thank you very much. It's been a very, very animated conversation. I'm sorry, we can take a call or two, but as we get closer, even post the elections, we probably will talk again in the near future. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Definitely. Trinidad Humanity campaign on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Right on 462-8870. You could reach me directly as the citizen because I'm a citizen too call and we'll tell you the plans. Look us up and see what we are about. No, that is the difference. Everybody I know I can understand but. But let's hope that we will be different. I've proven myself and mind you, through this cannabis thing, a large company came and offered me 3 to 6 million US per year for three years right here in the hire to refuse them before they could blink the aya right. I proved my integrity to myself more over than anybody else and government members know about that too. The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. [00:37:30] Speaker B: The all new talk radio freedom 106 point.