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Saturday, July 5, 2025

PDP asks TTPS to probe zipline project

by

Loyse Vincent
1628 days ago
20210119
Deputy Political Leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), Farley Augustine, during the meeting at Charlotteville, Tobago, on Sunday 17 January 2021.

Deputy Political Leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), Farley Augustine, during the meeting at Charlotteville, Tobago, on Sunday 17 January 2021.

PDP

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PDP Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he now has of­fi­cial THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil notes and re­ceipts, which he be­lieves proves that the PNM mis­man­aged the now con­tro­ver­sial zip line project.

But al­though Au­gus­tine in­tends to sub­mit the in­for­ma­tion to the au­di­tor gen­er­al, the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, THA Chief sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis said he, (Au­gus­tine) is mis­lead­ing the pub­lic.

Au­gus­tine threw his sup­port­ers in­to a fren­zy while speak­ing at a Char­lot­teville com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing on Sun­day night by bran­dish­ing an en­ve­lope he said con­tained of­fi­cial THA doc­u­ments and re­ceipts in his pos­ses­sion.

He said while PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil lead­ers are try­ing to pass the blame on to pub­lic ser­vants, a “pa­tri­ot­ic To­bag­on­ian” left the en­ve­lope in his mail­box. Just days be­fore while speak­ing in the same Char­lot­teville Com­mu­ni­ty Chief Sec­re­tary Den­nis said the records be­ing sought by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al was from pre­vi­ous years and re­quired that pub­lic ser­vants search “dusty files.”

The PDP Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader said ac­cord­ing to the files in his pos­ses­sion, the THA bud­get­ed $4 mil­lion for the project and a to­tal of $3.5 mil­lion was spent in­stead of $2.5 as orig­i­nal­ly stat­ed.

“$2.5 mil­lion was paid to the for­eign com­pa­ny but we have spent on this project - in­clu­sive of ho­tel and stays for To­ba­go of­fi­cials in Mi­a­mi, in­clu­sive of ho­tel stay for the com­pa­ny to come and do sight vis­its, in­clu­sive of food and drinks - we have spent in ex­cess of $3.5 mil­lion on this project”

De­scrib­ing the state­ments made by PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader Tra­cy David­son Ce­les­tine as the “biggest lie ever told” Au­gus­tine ac­cused her of try­ing to “trick To­bag­o­ni­ans” in June last year when she said the project is 85 per cent com­plete. And ac­cord­ing to the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil notes, the project should have been com­plet­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2015.

“The ser­vice provider was ready to de­liv­er all parts and equip­ment for the zip line tour, but To­ba­go had very lit­tle to show for the over $3.5 mil­lion spent, the on­ly thing on this is­land for the zip line is a piece of rope they paid Baird’s rental $1,000 to pick up and bring up from Trinidad.”

Au­gus­tine said he in­tends to send the doc­u­ments to the of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to com­plete the au­dit as well as the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er of Gary Grif­fith.

He al­so chal­lenged Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis to a pub­lic de­bate on the mis­man­age­ment of the fi­nances of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both David­son-Ce­les­tine and Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis for a com­ment on this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, while there was no re­sponse from David­son-Ce­les­tine, Den­nis said the doc­u­ments be­ing bran­dished by Au­gus­tine were ac­tu­al­ly Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil Notes giv­ing ap­proval for the project.

“The project didn’t hap­pen by vaps it was a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion to pur­sue this kind of de­vel­op­ment as part of our tourism thrust at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $4mil­lion.”

Den­nis said he been pur­su­ing the zip line project for the last sev­en months and Au­gus­tine is mis­lead­ing the pub­lic in­to think­ing the mon­ey was stolen and those re­spon­si­ble for the act are cur­rent­ly run­ning the THA.

Den­nis said he “is on­ly aware of one can­di­date in the elec­tion whose past ac­tions at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the TTPS and that is his (Au­gus­tine’s) po­lit­i­cal leader.”

He ad­vised Au­gus­tine to sub­mit what­ev­er ev­i­dence he has to sup­port his idea of crim­i­nal con­duct.

On No­vem­ber 12, last year, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment wrote a man­age­ment let­ter to the THA Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor on the find­ings of an au­dit. The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al not­ed, “no ap­proval was pre­sent­ed from the THA’s Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil for the es­tab­lish­ment of the fa­cil­i­ty.” The re­port said a vis­it to the stores sec­tion of the di­vi­sion re­vealed on­ly a por­tion of rope.


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