JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Less than a week af­ter warn­ing that non-per­form­ing sec­re­taries would be re­moved, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says his ad­min­is­tra­tion will ex­pand To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) di­vi­sions from sev­en to as many as 11.

Among the new en­ti­ties are a Di­vi­sion of Strate­gic Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment and an­oth­er fo­cused on in­vest­ments.

Speak­ing on To­ba­go Up­dates yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine ex­plained that plan­ning re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were pre­vi­ous­ly housed un­der the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary.
The new plan­ning di­vi­sion, he said, will guide To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy through 2045.

“We’re talk­ing about a di­vi­sion look­ing at how our com­mu­ni­ties are struc­tured, our large mega projects on the is­land, and en­sur­ing they are prop­er­ly planned. This di­vi­sion will al­so look at our strate­gic or pre­ferred in­vest­ments,” Au­gus­tine said.

He con­firmed that sec­re­taries will be sworn in on Jan­u­ary 26, when he will al­so an­nounce which lead­ers will head the new and ex­ist­ing di­vi­sions.
Au­gus­tine not­ed that sec­re­taries need not be sub­ject-mat­ter ex­perts, but must ex­cel at man­ag­ing peo­ple, time, and re­sources.

Ad­dress­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion along the Claude Noel High­way, he said an over­pass would ease dai­ly grid­lock and sup­port plans for a “green­er” Scar­bor­ough, as the is­land pur­sues en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

He al­so pledged to trav­el on the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny to gain first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of its ma­noeu­vring. The ves­sel, which in­cludes ad­di­tion­al cab­ins for truck­ers, is ex­pect­ed in the coun­try to­day.

Au­gus­tine al­so con­firmed that the THA will host Min­is­ter of State of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Noura bint Mo­hammed Al Kaabi, and her del­e­ga­tion dur­ing their vis­it to T&T.

To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce chair­man Cur­tis Williams yes­ter­day wel­comed the ex­pan­sion, em­pha­sis­ing that prop­er plan­ning is crit­i­cal to the is­land’s fu­ture.

“That is a good di­rec­tion be­cause with­out plan­ning, noth­ing is go­ing to hap­pen on the is­land. To­ba­go faces chal­lenges such as traf­fic con­ges­tion, and the is­land 20 years ago was not like it is to­day. Plan­ning is a vi­tal part of any ad­min­is­tra­tion go­ing for­ward,” Williams said.
Mo­ments be­fore Au­gus­tine’s in­ter­view, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke told Guardian Me­dia he was promised a role in de­vel­op­ing To­ba­go.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Duke said the as­sur­ance was giv­en be­fore last Mon­day’s elec­tion and reaf­firmed af­ter­wards, but did not spec­i­fy the po­si­tion.

“I was giv­en an as­sur­ance that he would def­i­nite­ly en­sure that To­bag­o­ni­ans who are gift­ed would be placed in po­si­tions to give To­ba­go what it de­sires. Frankly, I’m not seek­ing any­thing per­son­al­ly, be­cause he who serves must put the peo­ple he rep­re­sents ahead of him­self. What I want to see is To­ba­go rise, lead, and look the way it should—at the front, not lag­ging be­hind,” Duke said.