LOYSE VIN­CENT

At the stroke of mid­day yes­ter­day An­cil Den­nis, when asked if he was will­ing to serve as Chief Sec­re­tary af­ter the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, said: “On­ly the po­lit­i­cal leader can serve as Chief Sec­re­tary.”

Den­nis spoke with re­porters af­ter vot­ing his elec­toral dis­trict of Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant. Com­ment­ing on dozens of so­cial me­dia posts from sup­port­ers who said he should re­main as Chief Sec­re­tary, Den­nis said he was heart­ened by the show of sup­port.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly heart­en­ing be­cause it means that I am do­ing some­thing right and peo­ple have a right to ex­press their opin­ions its part of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, but on­ly the po­lit­i­cal leader can serve as the Chief Sec­re­tary,” he said.

The Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant rep­re­sen­ta­tive made his­to­ry as the youngest per­son to serve as Chief Sec­re­tary when he was sworn in­to of­fice in May 2020. The post be­came va­cant af­ter for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles lost the elec­tion for po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil and re­signed on April 28. The new po­lit­i­cal leader, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, was ap­point­ed a THA coun­cil­lor.

Den­nis said he was the 136th per­son to vote at the Buc­coo Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and de­scribed the process as smooth as there were no chal­lenges. He was in and out of the polling sta­tion with­in ten min­utes. Al­though the dis­trict gained the least num­ber of vot­ers through­out the is­land for the 2017 THA elec­tions, Den­nis said he was not con­cerned.

“Vot­er in the dis­trict tend to come in lat­er in the af­ter­noon but I an­tic­i­pate a turnout of more than 50 per cent,” he said

Re­flect­ing on the high­light of his tenure as Chief Sec­re­tary, he said: “I en­joyed meet­ing the peo­ple, be­ing ap­pre­ci­at­ed and cel­e­brat­ed by them, es­pe­cial­ly based on the con­tri­bu­tions over the last sev­en months.”

Den­nis said his great­est achieve­ments dur­ing his short stint was re­vi­tal­is­ing the is­land’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor,” the three-year con­tract agree­ment for pub­lic ser­vant (ex­tend­ed from two) and the Buc­coo Ma­rine Park Bil.”

Den­nis is seek­ing a third term as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant and gave him­self a pass­ing grade.

“I think a num­ber of de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties were cre­at­ed for the peo­ple and in terms of in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment and in terms of fa­cil­i­ties and the avail­abil­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties this is one of the dis­tricts that presents it­self as a mod­el to the rest the is­land and by and large the qual­i­ty of life for the res­i­dents of this dis­trict has im­proved over the last years,” he said.

Asked if he would pre­fer to serve in the Di­vi­sion of Food Pro­duc­tion, Fish­eries and Forestry since one of his ma­jor achieve­ments were made in the food pro­duc­tion sec­tor, Den­nis said he is pre­pared to serve in “what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers see fit.”

He added: “It’s the sole pre­rog­a­tive of the of the Chief Sec­re­tary.”