Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has strong­ly crit­i­cised the state­ment made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, re­ject­ing al­le­ga­tions about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and urg­ing her to pro­duce ev­i­dence for the claims.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Beck­les took is­sue with com­ments made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a state­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day. The Op­po­si­tion Leader main­tained that the Prime Min­is­ter used par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to lev­el se­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tions against the par­ty.

The state­ment fol­lowed re­marks in which Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged that the PNM had links to crim­i­nal fi­nanciers and sug­gest­ed that the par­ty’s head­quar­ters, Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain, was con­struct­ed us­ing pro­ceeds tied to the drug trade.