Camille McEach­nie

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said last night the Gov­ern­ment had to source $16 bil­lion more than the 2020 bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion to as­sist the coun­try through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Dr. Row­ley was ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence at the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil’s 2021 cam­paign launch and pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates for the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tions.

He said To­ba­go got its fair share of the bud­getary pie and at­trib­uted this to a “smooth co­op­er­a­tion and as­so­ci­a­tion” be­tween the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)- led Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

“We had to go and find $16 bil­lion ad­di­tion­al to the bud­get of last year Oc­to­ber to be able to fund our arrange­ment through a pan­dem­ic to be where we are to­day,” the PM told his au­di­ence.

He said de­spite the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial con­straints, To­ba­go’s fu­ture had not been “stymied ... it has been ac­cel­er­at­ed.”

He list­ed the Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion, Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, and fund­ing of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pan­sion projects as ev­i­dence of growth.

Dr Row­ley said the lat­ter project would en­sure the is­land is ready for the tourism in­dus­try’s resur­gence af­ter the pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing about the THA elec­tions, he said peo­ple were ask­ing for the oth­er par­ties to get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­trol To­ba­go.

“There are as­pi­rants in To­ba­go say­ing ‘give them a chance’. This is not a bin­go. It is not Play Whe. It is not the horse race track. This is the fu­ture of the chil­dren and all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Stop­ping short of nam­ing the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots’ (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke, Row­ley ad­dressed pub­lic ser­vants di­rect­ly.

“Let me say some­thing to a lot of you peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly pub­lic ser­vants in To­ba­go who have a job and who be­lieve this is none of your busi­ness and you are se­cure, you go and put some­one in of­fice who be­lieves that he vex with every­body and they be­lieve you did not sup­port them enough or at all and treat you the same way they treat their union mem­bers af­ter the last elec­tions.”

Duke, who is al­so Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), sent 20 PSA work­ers on va­ca­tion leave im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the PSA elec­tions last month.

To­ba­go Coun­cil Is­land leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, who al­so spoke at the meet­ing, echoed a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment.

She, too, did not name the PDP. She said an­oth­er par­ty would “stall or com­plete­ly de­rail To­ba­go’s re­cov­ery projects.”

She said the PDP’s cur­rent lead­er­ship is sim­i­lar to “a head­less horse­man.”

More on the THA Elec­tions on page 9.