CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON�FORBES

CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON–FORBES

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Orville Lon­don says the me­dia are re­spon­si­ble for blow­ing the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) board is­sue out of pro­por­tion. Lon­don was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion about the sta­tus of the board while he and To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin were sit­ting at the same ta­ble dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence on Mon­day.

Lon­don said the me­dia gave the sto­ry more cre­dence than it de­served.

He said: "I think we have been giv­ing a lot of me­dia play to an is­sue that is not fun­da­men­tal ei­ther to what is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Chief Sec­re­tary or the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­is­ter, to a cer­tain ex­tent.

"I am not say­ing this as a crit­i­cism but the me­dia would have been re­spon­si­ble for ac­tu­al­ly blow­ing this thing out of pro­por­tion and giv­ing it more me­dia play and giv­ing it more cre­dence it re­al­ly de­serves."

Lon­don told the me­dia he would not re­spond to any more ques­tions about the TRHA un­til he re­ceived word from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad–Bisses­sar.

He said the pub­lic bick­er­ing re­flect­ed neg­a­tive­ly on both his and Al­leyne-Top­pin's pub­lic im­age.

"I am mak­ing it very clear that I am not pre­pared to an­swer any more ques­tions on that ei­ther un­til I get a re­sponse from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter," he said. The TRHA con­tin­ues to op­er­ate with­out a board. Lon­don has re­quest­ed a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­cuss the is­sue dur­ing her vis­it to To­ba­go to­day.