Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has threat­ened to ig­nore the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (WASA), Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), say­ing “to hell with" these agen­cies be­cause their slow ap­provals are hold­ing back To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing at a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) meet­ing in Mount Grace on Tues­day night, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go can­not con­tin­ue to fall be­hind while ma­jor up­grades hap­pen across Trinidad.

He told sup­port­ers the THA has been wait­ing too long for ba­sic ap­provals on projects the is­land needs.

“It can­not be that when your chil­dren and grand­chil­dren go to Port-of-Spain, they’re strain­ing their neck look­ing up in the sky, be­cause every­thing looks fan­cy, and for us in To­ba­go, we’re still strug­gling,” he said.

He said the is­land has been blocked for too long by ap­proval de­lays for road works, tourism in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er ma­jor plans.

“That can­not re­main so,” he told the crowd. “And I’m telling you To­ba­go tonight, that if we are to fix that prob­lem, and build out tourism in­fra­struc­ture, we have to say to hell with EMA, to hell with Town and Coun­try Plan­ning, to hell with WASA, to hell with T&TEC… and build what the hell we have to build to en­sure To­ba­go looks like a de­vel­oped so­ci­ety.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said he un­der­stands why Au­gus­tine made the state­ment, say­ing To­ba­go faced years of dif­fi­cul­ty un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I un­der­stand the frus­tra­tion of the Chief Sec­re­tary hav­ing to con­tend with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion dur­ing his term,” he said.

Padarath claimed the for­mer gov­ern­ment “pur­pose­ly stymied” To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment and said Au­gus­tine’s frus­tra­tion did not be­gin overnight.

“Now that the Chief Sec­re­tary has a cen­tral gov­ern­ment that is will­ing to part­ner and work with him in the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of To­ba­go… I see a lot of good things ahead,” he said.

Padarath al­so con­firmed that he has al­ready in­struct­ed WASA to im­me­di­ate­ly sup­port the THA on out­stand­ing mat­ters.

“I have spo­ken to WASA to give the THA their fullest sup­port and co-op­er­a­tion,” he said.

Gon­za­les: Far­ley is

ly­ing for votes

But for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les strong­ly re­ject­ed Au­gus­tine’s claim that WASA blocked de­vel­op­ment un­der his lead­er­ship.

“WASA blocked projects un­der me?” he asked. “The most amount of projects that was ever done in To­ba­go was done dur­ing that pe­ri­od.”

Gon­za­les list­ed the Golds­bor­ough Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, the de­silt­ing of the Golds­bor­ough Dam, boost­er sta­tions, drilled wells and up­grades in Mary’s Hill as ma­jor projects com­plet­ed or start­ed be­tween 2020 and 2024.

“How on earth that rep­re­sents block­ing?” he said.

“Far­ley in­tends to con­tin­ue to lie to make To­ba­go feel as though they are vic­tims.”

He in­sist­ed the THA re­ceived every­thing it re­quest­ed dur­ing his term.

“There is noth­ing the THA came to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties for and they did not get. There was al­ways open col­lab­o­ra­tion,” he said.

Gon­za­les al­so said the projects were fund­ed by the State and the IDB, not by the THA.

“All of these projects were fund­ed from al­lo­ca­tions made to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties… the THA spent not one dol­lar,” he said.

The for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion Mikey Joseph de­clined to com­ment on the po­lit­i­cal dis­pute but made it clear that con­struc­tion with­out ap­provals comes with le­gal con­se­quences.

“It is il­le­gal to em­bark on con­struc­tion with­out ap­provals,” he said, adding that un­ap­proved works can be de­mol­ished if they are in se­ri­ous breach.

He al­so not­ed that the coun­try has a his­to­ry where 60 to 70 per cent of struc­tures are built with­out prop­er per­mis­sion and warned that the risk re­mains the same in To­ba­go.