Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis has ac­cused the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) of wast­ing mil­lions of dol­lars on bill­boards and signs, weeks be­fore the elec­tion, de­scrib­ing it as “shame­less” and “in­sult­ing.”

Den­nis said the THA failed to de­liv­er mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment, de­spite re­ceiv­ing what he de­scribed as an un­prece­dent­ed $13 bil­lion from cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing yes­ter­day, Den­nis said the cur­rent THA ad­min­is­tra­tion had “ab­solute­ly noth­ing to show” for its time in of­fice and had re­sort­ed to un­veil­ing signs just days be­fore the Jan­u­ary 12 elec­tion.

“Notwith­stand­ing the undis­putable fact that they re­ceived from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment $13 bil­lion, they have ab­solute­ly noth­ing to show for that mon­ey,” he said.

He crit­i­cised the re­cent un­veil­ing of the sign for the pro­posed agri­cul­tur­al project.

“They were quite pre­pared to join to­geth­er and to cut a rib­bon to re­veal to you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, a sign,” he said. “Fi­nal­ly, they have some­thing else to add to their track record of de­liv­ery —signs.”

Den­nis claimed six signs had been erect­ed across the is­land, in­clud­ing in Ba­co­let, Ply­mouth and above the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture com­pound at Shaw Park.

The signs are de­signed for a ma­jor agri park, round­abouts and a fa­cil­i­ty at Golds­bor­ough.

“My in­for­ma­tion is that those signs cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $10 mil­lion,” he said.

Den­nis al­so took aim at the Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture, who he said was pro­mot­ing an agri-park project while farm­ers con­tin­ued to face se­ri­ous chal­lenges.

“Farm­ers con­tin­ue to en­counter their prob­lems with ac­cess roads, their prob­lems with lack of sup­port, their prob­lems with the fact that none of those projects that were start­ed by the PNM were con­tin­ued un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said.

He ref­er­enced the Farm­land De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme ini­ti­at­ed un­der the PNM, which he said in­clud­ed iden­ti­fied lands, con­trac­tors and $80 mil­lion in fund­ing.

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion chose to redi­rect those funds away from the sup­port for the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to­wards oth­er things, such as trav­el­ling over­seas,” Den­nis said.

He said the THA’s record over the past four years amount­ed to “bro­ken promis­es af­ter bro­ken promis­es,” cit­ing de­lays in trans­port ser­vices and in­fra­struc­ture.

“Com­ing soon is not soon at all,” he said.

He list­ed projects he said were de­liv­ered un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing a stage in the sea; a $100 mil­lion road; a round­about; four bus sheds; re­fur­bished ten­nis courts; and six signs.

Den­nis con­trast­ed that with de­vel­op­ment un­der pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions, in­clud­ing the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, bridges and roads.

“In one term, your econ­o­my in To­ba­go was boom­ing be­cause we en­sured that when we re­ceived To­ba­go peo­ple’s mon­ey, we spent To­ba­go peo­ple’s mon­ey in a way that ben­e­fit­ed you,” he said.

He asked vot­ers to con­sid­er per­for­mance and ac­count­abil­i­ty ahead of elec­tion day.

“Af­ter four years of fail­ure, af­ter four years of ze­ro progress, they now want an­oth­er four years,” Den­nis said. “I’m say­ing to you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, look at the track record.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine could not be reached for com­ment.