Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has de­fend­ed the dis­missal of 400 work­ers from the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), say­ing the Op­po­si­tion has no moral au­thor­i­ty to crit­i­cise the move.

In a post on so­cial me­dia a short while ago, Tan­coo wrote, “Re­minder: in 2015 when PNM won elec­tions, URP work­ers, ALL, were LOCKED OUT of of­fices and IM­ME­DI­ATE­LY FIRED — no ex­pla­na­tion, no no­tice & not a cent — by the same PNM that is pre­tend­ing to care for work­ers to­day.”

Tan­coo did not give any fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion as to why the work­ers were fired; if there was a fi­nan­cial com­po­nent.