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KEITH SCOTLAND, Port of Spain South MP, suggested the UNC's election campaign promise of 50,000 jobs was turning out to be not 50,000 more jobs but 50,000 fewer jobs, as he recounted the recent mass firings in the public sector.

He was addressing a PNM rally at Malabar on July 24 themed "In defence of the people" the main speaker who was opposition leader Pennelope Beckles. Scotland spoke on the theme "political betrayal" to lambast the government's actions on the firings, in reversing its position of the need for a state of emergency (SoE), and in making allegedly nepotistic appointments to state boards.

He related that one woman – a mother – was so distraught at recently losing her Cepep job and in wondering how she would feed her children that one night she ended up in the middle of a savannah alone grasping a PNM flag and stark naked.