ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil has promised to cre­ate 7,000 jobs in To­ba­go over the next four years, un­der what it calls the “Big Bold Red” deal.

The pro­pos­al was un­veiled on Sun­day night at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort.

PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a bind­ing agree­ment with the peo­ple of To­ba­go rather than a tra­di­tion­al elec­tion man­i­festo.

“We’re not call­ing this a man­i­festo. This is dif­fer­ent. We’re call­ing this a deal — and not just any deal, but a big deal,” Den­nis said.

He said the plan is in­tend­ed to move To­ba­go “from a place of stag­na­tion, from a place of ru­in and de­struc­tion to a place of pros­per­i­ty, wealth and progress.”

Den­nis told sup­port­ers that most of the jobs would be cre­at­ed in the pri­vate sec­tor and ar­gued that em­ploy­ment should be the pri­ma­ry mea­sure of eco­nom­ic suc­cess.

“It’s time we get to the place where we judge the suc­cess of our gov­ern­ment by their abil­i­ty and by their track record of jobs and eco­nom­ic growth — not bus sheds,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Den­nis, the jobs would come from tourism, con­struc­tion, agri­cul­ture, the cre­ative sec­tor and small busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. He said the plan was shaped through con­sul­ta­tions with To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“This is not a PNM deal. This is a To­ba­go deal, built by To­ba­go unions for the peo­ple of To­ba­go,” Den­nis said.