Chester Sam­bra­no

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM)To­ba­go Coun­cil has de­cid­ed to make changes to its po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy in the event there is a snap elec­tion in a few months.

The re­think was forced by the mass res­ig­na­tion of the en­tire To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) ex­ec­u­tive from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots ear­li­er this week.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the de­vel­op­ment, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis said the par­ty has to be pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ties.

“Yes, there will be some changes to our strat­e­gy be­cause we op­er­ate on the premise that in To­ba­go, the elec­tion cy­cle is four years. Of course, there is al­ways the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a snap elec­tion, which is very rare, but giv­en the cur­rent de­vel­op­ments, we are re­al­is­ing that the sit­u­a­tion is very, very, un­pre­dictable, and any­thing can play off at this point in time,” he ex­plained on Tues­day.

He as­sured that whether the elec­tions are called next year or in three years when they are due, the PNM must and will be ready.

But in the mean­time, Den­nis said he was not sur­prised that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has re­ject­ed calls for To­bag­o­ni­ans to go back to the polls and that the ex­ec­u­tive would not be will­ing to give up the cur­rent pow­er they now pos­sess.

Nev­er­the­less, Den­nis has paint­ed a gloomy pic­ture of the PDP ad­min­is­tra­tion’s first year in of­fice.

“Dis­as­trous, in­ef­fec­tive and rid­dled with cor­rup­tion,” Duke said.

He said the PDP made a lot of promis­es to the peo­ple of To­ba­go dur­ing the 2021 THA elec­tion cam­paign and “so far, what we have seen is very far from that, they have not kept any of their promis­es.”

Den­nis al­so wad­ed in­to what he called the ques­tion­able cir­cum­stances in which con­tracts have been award­ed and ex­e­cut­ed on the is­land in the last year.

He al­so ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of go­ing af­ter po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

“Some peo­ple have been specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed be­cause of their po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion,” he said.

In ad­di­tion, he point­ed to sev­er­al in­stances of nepo­tism in the ap­point­ment of mem­bers to boards and key po­si­tions at pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

He said in some cas­es, wives, chil­dren and sib­lings were ap­point­ed.

Not­ing the mis­man­age­ment of To­ba­go af­fairs, Den­nis said, “Some work­ers in the THA are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing chal­lenges get­ting paid. Some have to wait as much as two months in some cas­es.”

The for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary con­ced­ed that un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, salaries may have been one or two fort­nights late but this was not very of­ten. How­ev­er, he said it is now a com­mon theme.

He said in ad­di­tion to that, “sec­re­taries are be­hav­ing in very ques­tion­able ways in the House of As­sem­bly, re­fus­ing to an­swer ques­tions, demon­strat­ing at­ti­tude, demon­strat­ing ar­ro­gance.”

Den­nis is, there­fore, not hope­ful of pos­i­tive change with the move away from the PDP to an As­sem­bly of in­de­pen­dents.

“They can change their colour, they can change their name, they can change their clothes, they could bathe and do what­ev­er else is re­quired; the same in­di­vid­u­als with the same at­ti­tude and the same mind­sets and the same high lev­els of in­ept­ness re­main at the helm man­ag­ing the af­fairs of the peo­ple of To­ba­go,” he said.

He said his con­cern now lies with the peo­ple and econ­o­my of To­ba­go which, he said, would suf­fer be­cause of the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty and in­sta­bil­i­ty in the THA.

“The av­er­age in­vestor look­ing at whether from Trinidad, or the re­gion, or in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, will be very cau­tious or con­cerned with de­vel­op­ments hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go,” he said.

On Tues­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine said he and his team re­mained com­mit­ted to run­ning the af­fairs of the is­land and said they would soon con­sult with the peo­ple on form­ing a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty.