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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

London calls on Govt: Pay up $625m owed to THA

by

20130122

Pay up the $625 mil­lion owed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and re­vis­it the To­ba­go self-gov­ern­ment bill. These were the first two re­quests of chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don in his vic­to­ry speech at the Old Mar­ket Square in To­ba­go on Mon­day night as the To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil gained a re­sound­ing and un­prece­dent­ed vic­to­ry over the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) in the THA's elec­tion

"The best in­au­gu­ra­tion gift will be a cheque from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance," Lon­don said. By 10 pm, with re­sults still to come in from some polling sta­tions, Lon­don was prepar­ing to give his vic­to­ry speech. All in­di­ca­tions at that point were that the PNM had giv­en the TOP a white­wash, cap­tur­ing all of the 12 seats. Some dubbed it a red wash, red be­ing the PNM par­ty's colour.

De­clar­ing the To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil had an agen­da to ful­fill, Lon­don said the THA and the cen­tral gov­ern­ment had to do a to­tal re­think of at­ti­tudes and pos­tures. "I am send­ing out an ur­gent ap­peal to the Prime Min­is­ter and the Cab­i­net. "Their great­est re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to­wards those they have been called up­on to serve."

Lon­don said af­ter he is in­stalled as chief sec­re­tary to­mor­row (for the fourth con­sec­u­tive term), one of the first items on the agen­da is for him and the PM to sit down and talk about the busi­ness of the peo­ple of To­ba­go. He said the $625 mil­lion out­stand­ing from Gov­ern­ment fund­ing to the THA must be giv­en to the as­sem­bly.

"We want it now!" a sup­port­er shout­ed. Lon­don said the mon­ey should be made avail­able to the THA in or­der for it to con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land. Fur­ther, the self-gov­ern­ment is­sue must be con­duct­ed in an en­vi­ron­ment of mu­tu­al co-op­er­a­tion and re­spect. The To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil has re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment's self-gov­ern­ment bill for the is­land, say­ing there was in­suf­fi­cient con­sul­ta­tion with the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

Lon­don said he in­tend­ed to put mea­sures in place to en­sure the peo­ple of To­ba­go have a greater say in the gov­er­nance of the is­land. Putting the busi­ness of the peo­ple above par­ty af­fil­i­a­tions, he added, "The Prime Min­is­ter is the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go first be­fore she is the leader of the UNC.

"And I am the leader of the THA be­fore I am the leader of the To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil." He al­so urged the coun­cil to put the peo­ple above the par­ty. Danc­ing be­gan in the square out­side the PNM's of­fice from as ear­ly as 8.30 pm. An emo­tion­al Lon­don, ad­dress­ing elat­ed sup­port­ers who waved co­coyea brooms and rang Bap­tist bells, said he felt hum­bled and chal­lenged by the vic­to­ry.

He said the peo­ple of To­ba­go has placed a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on him and his team to gov­ern To­ba­go over the next four years. Thank­ing To­ba­go for its sup­port, he said the win should not be viewed as a PNM vic­to­ry but a vic­to­ry for the peo­ple of To­ba­go. He said the PNM's vic­to­ry has sent a pow­er­ful sig­nal to all of T&T that To­ba­go is pre­pared to lead the way and will fol­low un­der the guid­ance of a To­bag­on­ian.

Chair­man speaks

PNM chair­man, Franklyn Khan, ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers said un­der Row­ley, the PNM has moved from de­feat in the last gen­er­al elec­tion to vic­to­ry in To­ba­go. He in­tro­duced Row­ley as the next prime min­is­ter of T&T. Not­ing that the cam­paign be­tween the TOP and the PNM po­larised To­bag­o­ni­ans, Lon­don urged all cit­i­zens to work to­geth­er for the ben­e­fit of the is­land.

He called on sup­port­ers to dis­play ma­tu­ri­ty af­ter a two-day cel­e­bra­tion of the vic­to­ry. "Let us cel­e­brate tonight and to­mor­row. But (af­ter that) there are at­ti­tudes we have to re­ject and mind­sets we have to change," he said.


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