Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les

@guardian.co.tt

De­spite de­nials from Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine that No Man’s Land has been sold or ear­marked for trans­fer, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis is in­sist­ing that ques­tions re­main about the prop­er­ty and the man­age­ment of To­ba­go’s as­sets.

Den­nis raised the is­sue while ad­dress­ing a PNM po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Dar­rel Spring/ Whim dis­trict, where he chal­lenged the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) slo­gan “To­ba­go is we.” He al­so ques­tioned whether de­ci­sions tak­en over the last four years have tru­ly ben­e­fit­ted To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“Be­cause ask the per­son next to you who owns the quar­ry in To­ba­go. Ask them that. Ask them who owns all the lands in Friend­ship Es­tate. Ask them who owns it now. I hear they’re look­ing to go away with No Man’s Land. Who owns No Man’s Land? But they’re com­ing to tell you ‘To­ba­go is we.’”

Den­nis said the is­sue did not stand in iso­la­tion, urg­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to think care­ful­ly about who con­trols the is­land’s key re­sources and who ben­e­fits from de­ci­sions af­fect­ing land and State as­sets.

He said slo­gans used by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion have masked what he de­scribed as a pe­ri­od of de­cline rather than progress.

“When they tell you To­ba­go is we, what you got for the last four years is ‘wee, wee,’” Den­nis said.

He said his com­ments were not in­tend­ed as an at­tack on Trinida­di­ans, but rather a call for To­bag­o­ni­ans to pay at­ten­tion to how de­ci­sions are made and who ul­ti­mate­ly gains.

He asked vot­ers to scru­ti­nise claims be­ing made on the cam­paign trail and to de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty as the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion ap­proach­es.

Den­nis called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to re­ject what he de­scribed as mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tives and to place To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests first.