Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke yes­ter­day re­signed as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

This came al­most one week af­ter the pub­lic im­broglio be­tween Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Duke over the sup­port the THA had giv­en to a group of To­bag­o­ni­ans from the To­ba­go Folk Per­form­ers.

Duke made the an­nounce­ment at a press con­fer­ence at the PDP’s Barataria of­fices yes­ter­day.

“I have de­cid­ed to re­sign im­me­di­ate ef­fect from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. I wish not to be part of Far­ley and his gang. I will not be part of an ex­ec­u­tive run by a child and his friends who doesn’t un­der­stand what it is to serve and servi­tude. You want to be big. Then form your own com­pa­ny. Run your own thing.”

He added, how­ev­er, that his res­ig­na­tion would not mean a war be­tween him­self and Far­ley but a de-es­ca­la­tion of it.

“We will not en­gage Far­ley Au­gus­tine and friends in any pub­lic fights. Ex­pect no fight from Wat­son Solomon Duke. You (Far­ley) are sim­ply not my equal and the rea­sons you are look­ing for a fight are un­wor­thy,” Duke said.

In ad­di­tion to this, Duke said the PDP will al­so part ways with the cur­rent THA ex­ec­u­tive.

“I will con­tin­ue to be an as­sem­bly­man rep­re­sent­ing Rox­bor­ough Ar­gyle but I will not sit with him, I will sit on the op­po­site side but I will not sit with the PNM ei­ther, it will be Wat­son Duke, the PDP rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple,” he added.

When asked whether oth­er PDP As­sem­bly mem­bers would fol­low his move to the oth­er side, Duke said he was un­sure and that de­ci­sion was theirs to make.

He said it was un­can­ny that a plea ask­ing for as­sis­tance for food for To­bag­o­ni­ans abroad had in­ten­si­fied in­to a mat­ter of dis­parag­ing his name.

Duke claimed he was con­tact­ed by the Chief Sec­re­tary yes­ter­day, for the first time in about two weeks, via What­sApp, re­quest­ing his pres­ence for a meet­ing with the ex­ec­u­tive board.

In re­sponse to this, Duke said that he was tired of fight­ing.

“I have re­tired from fight­ing against in­di­vid­u­als, I am fight­ing for the peo­ple of To­ba­go now, I am fight­ing to put peo­ple be­fore pol­i­tics.”

Ac­cord­ing to Duke, Au­gus­tine has dis­con­nect­ed him­self from the com­mon man and had for­got­ten that the PDP’s cam­paign promised to deal with the “bread and but­ter” is­sues that were present.

He added, “We said on the plat­form that no big con­tract would take place in To­ba­go with­out at least 40% of that mon­ey re­main­ing in To­ba­go... we must be­come the own­ers of our own econ­o­my. Far­ley and friends have di­vorced them­selves from that man­date and they are now the rein­car­na­tion of PNM.”

Duke claimed the THA has been se­lect­ing con­trac­tors from Trinidad to pave roads through sole se­lect arrange­ment for con­tracts amount­ing to mil­lions of dol­lars and leav­ing the less prof­itable ones with­in the is­land.

He al­so asked that the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T to check the bags of the Chief Sec­re­tary when he trav­els be­tween the is­lands.

“He is col­lect­ing mon­ey, let him say the source,” Duke said.

Duke dis­closed that he was al­so aware that Au­gus­tine was form­ing a new par­ty and sym­bol and in­tend­ed to ap­point Dr Faith B. Yis­rael as his new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. He urged Au­gus­tine to reg­is­ter his par­ty as soon as pos­si­ble in­stead of fight­ing mind­less­ly.

De­spite this, Duke said his fo­cus had changed and he is now ready for a dif­fer­ent bat­tle.

He said, “I in­tend to com­mit my­self to an­oth­er fight, I don’t fight chil­dren, I don’t fight peo­ple who are un­der my lev­el and Far­ley is not on my lev­el. I de­cide to take on a fight now with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, a more di­rect fight, a fight for Port-of-Spain.”

Af­ter the press con­fer­ence, Duke sub­mit­ted his of­fi­cial let­ter of res­ig­na­tion to the THA Chief Sec­re­tary’s of­fice.