SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

New­ly-ap­point­ed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis, says To­bag­o­ni­ans have been ex­press­ing ‘buy­er’s re­morse’ over the elec­tion of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Den­nis said he has been re­ceiv­ing nu­mer­ous com­plaints from To­bag­o­ni­ans, as he has kept his ears to the ground since the PNM’s stag­ger­ing 14-1 de­feat in the De­cem­ber 6 THA elec­tions.

“A num­ber of per­sons are dis­ap­point­ed at this time, sim­ply be­cause the ex­pec­ta­tions have not been met, the promis­es made by the PDP dur­ing their cam­paign, all of them so far have been bro­ken, per­sons are al­ready dis­ap­point­ed,” Den­nis said.

He said he has made him­self avail­able to To­bag­o­ni­ans and many call him to ask for as­sis­tance or to vent.

“I am still in touch with the peo­ple, that is the word on the ground cur­rent­ly, that peo­ple are grow­ing more and more dis­ap­point­ed day by day.”

As for his per­son­al life, Den­nis said he was cur­rent­ly out of work and try­ing to set him­self up in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try. He has al­so been send­ing out job ap­pli­ca­tions.

“I am ap­ply­ing for jobs in Trinidad. I don’t be­lieve I will be able to find em­ploy­ment in To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly in the THA,” Den­nis said.

He ac­cused the PDP of try­ing to “si­lence” pub­lic ser­vants on the is­land and wield­ing their po­lit­i­cal pow­er to put their ad­vi­sors and friends in key po­si­tions at the THA.

How­ev­er, he promised al­though the PNM on­ly has one seat in the As­sem­bly, they will do what they can to keep the PDP in check.

“We will con­tin­ue to keep them in check, we will give all the nec­es­sary sup­port to the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader and the coun­cil to en­sure that we are able to keep this run­away horse in check as far as pos­si­ble. A num­ber of To­bag­o­ni­ans are feel­ing the pain. They (PDP) will try to give you the im­pres­sion that this is what nor­mal­ly hap­pens at the change of an ad­min­is­tra­tion but that is not so…” he said.

As for the fu­ture of the PNM, Den­nis said he in­tends to re­gain the foot­ing the par­ty lost on De­cem­ber 6.

“Con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief, the PNM is not dead in To­ba­go, we still have a sol­id sup­port base on the is­land of To­ba­go.”

He al­so had a mes­sage for the par­ty’s faith­ful on the is­land, say­ing, “I want to say as well to the PNM mem­ber­ship, in par­tic­u­lar, yes we are in this po­si­tion of op­po­si­tion but we still have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to serve the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS