Patriotic Front political leader and the party’s candidate for Couva North, Mickela Panday, criticised the country’s political and financial climate, highlighting racial division encouraged by leaders and exploitation by the banking sector.
At the party’s first political meeting for the 2025 general election at the Chaguanas South Secondary School on April 19, she said under a Patriotic Front government, the banking sector would be reformed to put people before profit.
She said since 2014 the country’s economy suffered because of a fall in energy prices and a worsening foreign exchange crisis.
“While ordinary citizens and small businesses fight to survive, neither of the parties sitting in Parliament, past or present, within the last 20 years have done a thing to fix it.
“Instead, they have allowed the banking sector to continue unchecked, draining the pockets of hard-working people and denying fair access to foreign exchange.”
She said the people endured insults and indignities from the banking sector so the Patriotic Front would mandate banks to provide proper facilities and service for citizens, and put a cap on bank fees and interest rates to prevent families from being pushed deeper into debt.
She said it would work to reform the foreign exchange allocation process to make it transparent, accountable and fair, ensuring small businesses and ordinary citizens got their fair share.
It would also strengthen oversight of the banking sector by giving the Central Bank the authority to regulate, monitor and discipline financial institutions, as well as encourage competition by supporting community banks and credit unions to provide better service and fairer terms.
“Most importantly, we will build a financial system that works for the people. A system that supports entrepreneurship, empowers families and fuels local development.
“We believe that banking should serve the nation, not enslave it. “The time for passive leadership is over. You cannot manage the economy, if you cannot protect the people from exploitation, then you have no place in government.”
Panday said her party would put people before self, and before dirty politics.
She denounced divisive political tactics and called for unity, urging voters to choose leaders who respect democracy and public service, and to vote for change in the upcoming general election.
She said people were slinging lies, slander, threats and more on social media and the leaders were encouraging it or turning a blind eye to it as a form of manipulation.
She said campaigners were clashing over t-shirts and slogans, and those who do not support certain parties were being monitored, threatened and persecuted but not one political leader has told their supporters to stop.
“If these people behave like this now when they are begging for power, how do you think they will behave when they win? Stop taking tablet for other people’s fever.
“Let me tell you something. Power does not humble these people. It emboldens them. This will not unite our nation. They will
