To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris says the new State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared this morn­ing is a “dag­ger to the heart” of To­ba­go’s al­ready strug­gling tourism sec­tor.

He be­lieves the is­land, which is see­ing a re­duc­tion in crime, has been thrown in­to what he de­scribes as a storm.

But what trou­bles him most is the Chief Sec­re­tary’s si­lence.

The de­c­la­ra­tion comes just 201 days af­ter the last SoE, and Mor­ris be­lieves it spells eco­nom­ic dis­as­ter for the is­land, es­pe­cial­ly with Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val just weeks away.

“To­day’s an­nounce­ment of yet an­oth­er state of emer­gency just 201 days af­ter the last is noth­ing short of a dag­ger to the heart of To­ba­go’s al­ready strug­gling tourism sec­tor,” Mor­ris said.

He warned that the tim­ing of the mea­sure could col­lapse any re­main­ing hopes for re­cov­ery.

“We are less than three months away from the Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val, an event that was sup­posed to give To­ba­go’s econ­o­my a much-need­ed boost. And yet here we are again, fac­ing more un­cer­tain­ty, more can­cel­la­tions, and more eco­nom­ic fall­out.”

He said To­ba­go is in the mid­dle of a “per­fect storm” of crises, in­clud­ing the on­go­ing sar­gas­sum in­va­sion and falling vis­i­tor ar­rivals.

“And what we are now hav­ing is in­deed a per­fect storm,” he said. “The win­ter sea­son, which should be our life­line, is now un­der threat.”

Mor­ris al­so ques­tioned the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for im­ple­ment­ing an SoE that ap­plies to both is­lands, say­ing To­ba­go has ac­tu­al­ly seen less crime since the last SoE end­ed.

“What is even more alarm­ing and con­cern­ing to me is that while we are see­ing a stark in­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty post the last state of emer­gency in Trinidad, one can­not help but ac­cept that in To­ba­go there has been some se­ri­ous im­prove­ment.

“Was there a re­al need to have a state of emer­gency in such a way that would af­fect both is­lands? It seems as if Pe­ter is pay­ing for Paul, be­cause To­ba­go’s tourism stands to lose in a big way.”

He de­mand­ed to know who would take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the loss­es that lo­cal tourism op­er­a­tors will now face.

“Who will com­pen­sate or who will en­sure that these tourism stake­hold­ers, our hote­liers, our restau­ra­teurs, our taxi dri­vers, our ar­ti­sans, who will en­sure that these peo­ple are com­pen­sat­ed for loss of earn­ings dur­ing this time?”

Mor­ris then ac­cused Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of go­ing silent, de­spite pre­vi­ous­ly slam­ming the cen­tral gov­ern­ment for sim­i­lar de­ci­sions.

“This is the same man who dur­ing the last State of Emer­gency was quick to la­bel the gov­ern­ment wicked, an­ti-To­ba­go, and ac­cuse them of killing our tourism prod­uct. But where is he now? To­day, he’s silent.”

He asked whether the THA Ex­ec­u­tive was even con­sult­ed be­fore the SoE was de­clared.

“Has he been con­sult­ed be­fore this de­ci­sion was tak­en? Were the two MPs con­sult­ed?

“And does he be­lieve that this is al­so an­ti-To­ba­go, or is it on­ly con­ve­nient to speak up when you are not part of the back­room dis­cus­sions or when it does not in­volve your friends and col­leagues in Trinidad?”

All at­tempts to get re­spons­es from Au­gus­tine and Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor were un­suc­cess­ful.