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Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has hit back at Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young over crit­i­cism of Christ­mas events held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU).

In a Face­book post, Padarath de­scribed Young’s com­ments as “shame­less” and said, “In his usu­al dis­gust­ing and abra­sive at­ti­tude to­wards pub­lic ser­vants, I have tak­en note of com­ments made on so­cial me­dia by MP Stu­art Young.”

Padarath ex­plained the arrange­ments for the events, say­ing, “The per­for­mances at Christ­mas events at the OPM and MPU were done by artistes con­tract­ed by the PNM un­der TSTT as brand am­bas­sadors. No funds from the OPM or MPU were paid to the artistes. In­stead, they were asked to per­form since they were al­ready brand am­bas­sadors for the state. They gra­cious­ly agreed. I have con­firmed this with the CEO of TSTT.”