Gail Alexan­der

Not so Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots!

Kelvon Mor­ris, the lone Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment As­sem­bly­man in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), has slammed Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the PDP af­ter Mor­ris’ wife and 16 oth­er work­ers lost their jobs on Thurs­day when the THA’s Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship Unit was dis­band­ed. The unit is un­der the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary.

How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine said in a Face­book post yes­ter­day that it was noth­ing per­son­al con­cern­ing Mor­ris’ wife since the unit was re­struc­tured. But Mor­ris is re­serv­ing the right to take le­gal ac­tion ac­cord­ing to the terms of his wife’s dis­missal.

Mor­ris said his wife had been in­ter­viewed and hired for a post in the unit and be­gan work­ing last Oc­to­ber. Pre­vi­ous­ly, she had worked with the THA’s Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion as a project sup­port of­fi­cer for four years.

“My wife has a Mas­ters in In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Man­age­ment and she prop­er­ly ap­plied for and was in­ter­viewed and now she’s been fired just like that. Work­ers were called to a meet­ing at 1 pm on Thurs­day and told of their dis­missal,” Mor­ris said in a post on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

“There was nev­er any in­di­ca­tion from the PDP that the unit would be dis­band­ed. This shut­down came like a thief in the night. When I told To­bag­o­ni­ans that this PDP ad­min­is­tra­tion was wicked and vin­dic­tive, many at­tempt­ed to cas­ti­gate my name. (But) Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine— re­mem­ber, to­day for me, to­mor­row for you!”

Au­gus­tine, in his re­sponse to Mor­ris’ com­ments, stat­ed: “Please don’t mis­con­strue the facts. The en­tire Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ships Unit is be­ing re­struc­tured. It has noth­ing to do with your wife per­son­al­ly.

“And just as an ad­di­tion, I have a very, very close rel­a­tive who walked (sic) in my wed­ding that is a part of the same unit that is now be­ing re­struc­tured. This is not about your wife specif­i­cal­ly so don’t make it out to be what it isn’t.”

Au­gus­tine didn’t re­spond to calls for com­ment yes­ter­day but oth­er PDP of­fi­cials point­ed to his re­cent com­ments on tele­vi­sion that the THA’s work­force is “too large.” They could not say how many oth­er units will be sim­i­lar­ly re­struc­tured.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris replied to those sen­ti­ments, adding: “I’m dis­ap­point­ed at what’s hap­pened, as I thought we were mov­ing to a point of em­brac­ing the best of To­ba­go and treat­ing with the busi­ness of To­ba­go in a clear and eq­ui­table man­ner.”

He claimed PDP leader Wat­son Duke had promised in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion lead-up that there would be “no jus­tice” for those with the “big red flag (PNM flag).

“Our par­ty re­mind­ed To­ba­go, and par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tract work­ers, of what PDP promised when this (De­cem­ber 2021 THA) elec­tion took place. How­ev­er, the PDP de­nied they would have done that and as­sured all THA work­ers their jobs were se­cure and they had noth­ing to wor­ry about,” Mor­ris said.

“So this is where my dis­ap­point­ment lies as it’s un­for­tu­nate, to say the least, that the PDP, now in of­fice, has re­neged on that promise they made to To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“It’s in this con­text that my com­ments to Far­ley Au­gus­tine have arisen. My wife has be­come a vic­tim of this ad­min­is­tra­tion and their dou­ble­s­peak. We await the de­tails of the of­fi­cial let­ter which hasn’t been re­ceived yet but we re­serve the right to take le­gal ac­tion de­pend­ing on the terms of dis­missal.”

Mor­ris said his Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil has a help desk for To­bag­o­ni­ans who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems. So far, a group of work­ers from an­oth­er sec­tor who al­so re­ceived dis­missal let­ters have sought its as­sis­tance

“We need to move away from the pol­i­tics of spite and vic­tim­i­sa­tion to a po­si­tion where To­ba­go pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ty for all. It’s the on­ly way for To­ba­go to move for­ward and it is key at this time when Trinidad and To­ba­go is open­ing up,” Mor­ris said.