Camille McEach­nie

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) pro­pos­es the cre­ation of a uni­ver­si­ty in To­ba­go to im­prove and di­ver­si­fy the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil­lor Dr Faith B Yis­rael will move a mo­tion ex­plain­ing the PDP’s pro­pos­al at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s 22nd sit­ting held at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture Cham­ber.

It’s her first mo­tion in the Cham­ber since her in­au­gu­ra­tion on Jan­u­ary 2017.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the PDP’s week­ly press brief­ing in James Park, Scar­bor­ough, Yis­rael said the time has come for the is­land’s tourism prod­uct to in­clude more than sea, sun and sand.

She said, “The idea is that if we have the uni­ver­si­ty and we mar­ket it out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go we can as­sist in di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my. We will get more for­eign ex­change as they (stu­dents) will pay their tu­ition in a for­eign cur­ren­cy.”

She added: “There is the mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect of hav­ing a world-class in­sti­tu­tion in To­ba­go. .. and of­fer­ing fam­i­lies the op­por­tu­ni­ty to al­so come to have sea, sand and sun.”

The PDP coun­cil­lor said she un­der­stands get­ting the mo­tion passed will not be easy, as it will be con­sid­ered an op­po­si­tion mo­tion.

“We know that this is a num­bers game and that they (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) -) will mod­i­fy it... and change the spir­it of the mo­tion.”

She said the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion usu­al­ly takes all PDP’s “well- writ­ten, well-mean­ing mo­tions and mod­i­fy them and pass the mod­i­fied ver­sion.”

Faith said if the PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives ig­nore the idea of hav­ing a To­ba­go uni­ver­si­ty then To­bag­o­ni­ans should take ac­tion.

“To­bag­o­ni­ans should be very clear that if the PDP brings some­thing... that will di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my ...and mem­bers of the PNM do not agree with it sim­ply be­cause it is was a PDP idea, ....then To­bag­o­ni­ans should change their rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2021,” she said.

Re­mind­ed that the idea of build­ing a uni­ver­si­ty in To­ba­go is not new, and the To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute— a ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tion al­ready ex­ist here, she was asked how the new ed­u­ca­tion project would be fund­ed.

“Our dear Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was very will­ing to spend $3 to $7 bil­lion to as­sist in our tourism prod­uct by cre­at­ing a San­dals brand,” she said.

She added, “If the To­ba­go-born Prime Min­is­ter was will­ing to do that and hand it over to in­ter­na­tion­als for them to man­age, he should not have any prob­lems what­so­ev­er in in­vest­ing that same amount of mon­ey in­to the Uni­ver­si­ty of To­ba­go.