Clay­ton Clarke

To­ba­go is soon to get a new Li­cens­ing Of­fice as well as up­grades at the Crown Point In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and the Scar­bor­ough port fa­cil­i­ties.

The de­ci­sions were the out­come of a meet­ing with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er at the Mt Irvine Ho­tel, To­ba­go, yes­ter­day. The THA team was lead by Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don who said he was hap­py with talks –the first be­tween the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the THA since the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship took of­fice. Lon­don said most of the is­sues raised by To­ba­go of­fi­cials re­ceived the sup­port of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port team. He said: "Mr Warn­er gave the as­sur­ance that the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to sub­sidise the air and sea bridge be­tween the two is­lands and to en­sure the cost of trav­el re­mains af­ford­able to pri­vate and com­mer­cial pas­sen­gers. He has com­mit­ted to fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tions."

Warn­er said the talks would help im­prove the re­la­tion­ship be­tween his min­istry and the PNM-led THA and he was look­ing for­ward to fur­ther dis­cus­sions. The THA del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed Sec­re­tary for Trans­port and Trans­port Os­wald Williams, Sec­re­tary for Works and In­fra­struc­ture Orville Adams and his as­sis­tant Gary Melville. Warn­er was ac­com­pa­nied by per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Cher­ryl Black­man and To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne Top­pin. Adams said a new Li­cens­ing Of­fice would be built in To­ba­go to re­place the ex­ist­ing one at Shaw Park. He said a lo­ca­tion was still to be de­ter­mined. Black­man said a To­ba­go cen­tre for the new Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Au­thor­i­ty would be es­tab­lished.

Black­man added: "The views of To­ba­go have been sought to be in­clud­ed in the leg­is­la­tion. The needs of the To­bag­o­ni­ans will be met. "The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of li­cens­ing is shared with the THA and our min­istry in ac­cor­dance with the THA Act and we want to en­sure that is ad­hered to."

The new au­thor­i­ty and the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion should be in place by De­cem­ber." Williams said up­grad­ing works would be done on the run­way and the ter­mi­nal build­ing at Crown Point and the pas­sen­ger area at Scar­bor­ough. Williams al­so said the air and sea bridges were vi­tal to the is­land's tourism-based econ­o­my.

The THA rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Lam­beau/ Sig­nal Hill said talks al­so were held on pos­si­ble in­clu­sion of the state-owned Caribbean Air­lines on the North Amer­i­ca/To­ba­go route. Lon­don and Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance and En­ter­prise, Dr Anslem Lon­don, will lead a THA del­e­ga­tion to meet Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an.