Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) of in­ten­tion­al­ly block­ing him from vis­it­ing the quar­ry on the is­land and then hav­ing the au­dac­i­ty to blame him for chal­lenges with­in its Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, THA Sec­re­tary Trevor James said the Stud­ley Park En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (SPEL) is strug­gling to get a blast­ing per­mit and a min­ing li­cence from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries in Trinidad.

James said that SPEL’s blast­ing per­mit ex­pired in April 2023 but their ap­pli­ca­tion for re­new­al, which was made since Oc­to­ber 12, 2022, has been so far ig­nored.

James claimed that “this was an­oth­er at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment in Trinidad to over­reach and stymy op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease THA rev­enue.”

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter, who heard the claim in the me­dia con­fer­ence, was not at all hap­py with the Sec­re­tary and made this known while speak­ing to Diego Mar­tin res­i­dents at the open­ing of the Diego Mar­tin North Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day.

Row­ley re­spond­ed to the THA, which he ac­cused of be­liev­ing they are “big and pow­er­ful.”

“I was in To­ba­go one day at the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence and I heard from my col­leagues that the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port was com­ing to To­ba­go to vis­it as part of try­ing to get a feel of the crushed rock sup­ply. He was go­ing to go to the one big quar­ry in To­ba­go owned by the THA. And I was right next door and I said I will come with you be­cause I want to see what’s hap­pen­ing there and how we could help.”

Dr Row­ley, who has a de­gree in Ge­ol­o­gy, ex­plained that he has vast ex­pe­ri­ence with crushed rock, which is a key com­po­nent in con­struc­tion.

“I am a trained ge­ol­o­gist; I was the first man­ag­er that was hired by Na­tion­al Quar­ries Lim­it­ed to start that com­pa­ny to pro­duce crush rock for the Point Lisas de­vel­op­ment and every­where in the coun­try. At one time, I was re­spon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing crush rock to build the Twin Tow­ers, the sta­di­um, the Point Lisas Port, the San Fer­nan­do High­way and the Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal.”

How­ev­er, the PM said he nev­er made it to the quar­ry.

“About two hours lat­er, I was told don’t both­er, the vis­it is off be­cause some­body in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, I don’t know who, but I am hav­ing a good idea who it is now, but some­body in the As­sem­bly de­cid­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port must not be al­lowed to en­ter the quar­ry.”

Row­ley took a long pause, seem­ing­ly wait­ing for the au­di­ence to process what he said.

“But I won­der if any­one in the THA know about quar­ry­ing?” he asked.

“I am the ex­pert!” he bel­lowed, “I am the head of the Cab­i­net, but I can’t go to the quar­ry?”

The Prime Min­is­ter said Sec­re­tary James would not men­tion what hap­pened be­cause the THA be­lieves they are too big and pow­er­ful. “The point I am mak­ing is this, there are too many peo­ple who ei­ther can’t do noth­ing, who are not pre­pared to do any­thing but quick to blame every­body else for their cir­cum­stance, and I am just so fed-up with so many of those peo­ple who have per­me­at­ed our so­ci­ety.”

Dr Row­ley said such peo­ple need to be called out.