Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is promis­ing to cre­ate 7,000 jobs in To­ba­go over the next four years un­der its Big, Bold and Red man­i­festo, which the par­ty says will dri­ve pri­vate-sec­tor growth and trans­form the is­land’s econ­o­my.

It is al­so promis­ing full pub­lic dis­clo­sure and ac­count­abil­i­ty for over­seas trav­el by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) sec­re­taries if the PNM is elect­ed, amid on­go­ing pub­lic con­cern about of­fi­cial trav­el over the past four years.

The plan was un­veiled on Sun­day night at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, where PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis told sup­port­ers that job cre­ation is at the cen­tre of the par­ty’s eco­nom­ic vi­sion.

“Now, I want to tell you how we are go­ing to cre­ate sev­en thou­sand jobs in four years right here in To­ba­go,” Den­nis said.

He said em­ploy­ment, not small-scale re­fur­bish­ments, should be the bench­mark for gov­ern­ment suc­cess.

“Cre­at­ing jobs is the lifeblood of every econ­o­my,” Den­nis said.

“Gov­ern­ments should be judged by their track record of jobs and eco­nom­ic growth — not bus sheds.”

Ac­cord­ing to Den­nis, the jobs will be gen­er­at­ed main­ly through the pri­vate sec­tor, with tar­get­ed growth in tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture, agri­cul­ture and agri-pro­cess­ing, the cre­ative sec­tor, the blue-green econ­o­my and small busi­ness ser­vices.

He said tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty alone could gen­er­ate about 1,500 jobs, while con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture projects are ex­pect­ed to cre­ate around 2,000 jobs.

Agri­cul­ture and agri-pro­cess­ing would con­tribute at least 1,000 jobs, with ad­di­tion­al em­ploy­ment com­ing from cre­ative in­dus­tries, re­new­able en­er­gy and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

Den­nis said the man­i­festo al­so com­mits to mov­ing work­ers out of short-term “ten-day” em­ploy­ment pro­grammes and in­to per­ma­nent, sus­tain­able jobs.

“We’re not in­to that. We are go­ing to move you from that in­to per­ma­nent, sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.”

Ma­jor projects out­lined in the man­i­festo in­clude a cruise ship vil­lage and ter­mi­nal in Scar­bor­ough, new ho­tels and eco-re­sorts, mari­nas, eco-ad­ven­ture parks and a pro­posed sky ca­ble car con­nect­ing the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade to Fort King George.

Den­nis said all projects that can be car­ried out by To­ba­go con­trac­tors will re­main in To­ba­go.

He al­so out­lined plans for ex­pand­ed sup­port to farm­ers, fish­er­men and cre­atives, as well as in­creased grants and ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing for small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es.

Den­nis said the fig­ures in the man­i­festo were based on re­search and con­sul­ta­tion.

“We didn’t just pull these num­bers out of a hat. We stud­ied the thing. We re­searched the thing,” he said.

He de­scribed the doc­u­ment as a com­mit­ment to To­bag­o­ni­ans rather than a tra­di­tion­al man­i­festo.

“This is not a man­i­festo. This is a deal,” Den­nis said. “A deal with the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

THA over­seas trav­el dis­clo­sure

On the is­sue of over­seas trav­el by THA sec­re­taries, Den­nis said, “There will nev­er be a sit­u­a­tion where any sec­re­tary is out in the coun­try joyrid­ing and you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, were not in­formed.”

He said un­der a PNM-led THA, To­bag­o­ni­ans would be told in ad­vance when of­fi­cials leave the coun­try on of­fi­cial busi­ness.

“When they leave here, they will leave with your knowl­edge and with your per­mis­sion,” he said.

Den­nis added that ac­count­abil­i­ty would not stop when of­fi­cials re­turn.

“When they re­turn, they will be re­quired to re­port to you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, on what they went to do and how suc­cess­ful they were in that mis­sion,” he said.

His com­ments come amid pub­lic dis­cus­sion about over­seas trav­el un­der the cur­rent THA ad­min­is­tra­tion, where ques­tions have been raised about trips tak­en with­out pri­or pub­lic no­tice and with­out clear re­port­ing af­ter of­fi­cials re­turned.

Den­nis crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as poor out­comes from tax­pay­er-fund­ed trav­el.

“Twen­ty-five mil­lion dol­lars was spent in trav­el. The re­al­i­ty is that we got ze­ro dol­lars and ze­ro cents in in­vest­ments,” he said.

Den­nis al­so pledged to lim­it his own of­fi­cial trav­el if elect­ed Chief Sec­re­tary.

“As your Chief Sec­re­tary, I will scarce­ly trav­el on THA’s re­sources,” he said, adding that per­son­al trips would be paid for pri­vate­ly.

He ar­gued that trans­paren­cy around trav­el is nec­es­sary to re­build trust be­tween the THA and the pub­lic.