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Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned that her gov­ern­ment’s sus­pen­sion of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and re­view of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) has trig­gered push­back from what she de­scribed as the “deep state” and “the bel­ly of the un­der­world.”

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Cou­va on Mon­day night, she said the mea­sures, aimed at in­ves­ti­gat­ing and dis­man­tling cor­rup­tion, had un­earthed “a re­sis­tance that reach­es far and wide.”

“They will hire lawyers. They will use their po­lit­i­cal prox­ies. They will call in favours from in­flu­en­tial busi­ness peo­ple and their me­dia con­tacts. And they will re­sort to go­ing af­ter any­one who leads or is in­volved in this crack­down… They’ve al­ready made threats to Khadi­jah (Ameen), to Fer­oz (Khan), to Bar­ry (Padarath). But I say nev­er fear be­cause Kam­la is here.”