To­ba­go is brim­ming with op­ti­mism fol­low­ing a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal shift at the na­tion­al lev­el. With the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress de­thron­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and new­com­er the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty cap­tur­ing both of the is­land’s seats, hopes are high for mean­ing­ful change.

Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams said he’s look­ing for­ward to strong re­sults—es­pe­cial­ly in the fight against crime and the in­tro­duc­tion of laws and ini­tia­tives that can breathe new life in­to the is­land’s econ­o­my.

Williams said the is­land is un­der “tremen­dous pres­sure” and called on the new UNC-led ad­min­is­tra­tion to pri­ori­tise To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing in­fra­struc­ture, busi­ness sup­port and tourism.

Fol­low­ing the TPP’s his­toric win of both To­ba­go seats and the UNC’s sweep in Trinidad, Williams con­grat­u­lat­ed both par­ties but stressed, “All I ask is that they could look at To­ba­go’s plight and treat it with a mat­ter of ur­gency.”

Williams said the econ­o­my in To­ba­go re­mains slug­gish and ser­vice providers are still owed pay­ments.

“When we talk to the THA, we see that they are hav­ing a cash flow is­sue. And we hope that through­out the mid-year re­view, some ex­tra cash is giv­en to them so that they can deal with some of the is­sues they have in terms of pay­ment to the nor­mal ser­vice providers and sup­pli­ers.”

He said many con­trac­tors are still grap­pling with hun­dreds of mil­lions in in­her­it­ed debt, which im­pacts the is­land’s econ­o­my.

“The trick­le-down ef­fect of mon­ey mov­ing around the space is not hap­pen­ing, and it af­fects busi­ness through­out.”

On tourism, he urged the new gov­ern­ment to work in syn­er­gy with the THA.

Williams said he hopes the San­dals and Mar­riott projects are not shelved un­der the new gov­ern­ment.

“The type of ho­tel plants we have in To­ba­go right now—they’re not fit for pur­pose.”

Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean is al­so hope­ful. He hoped to see an in­crease in flights, tar­get­ed in­vest­ment in the ho­tel sec­tor, and strate­gies to boost vis­i­tor ar­rivals and en­cour­age longer stays.

He called the re­sults a breath of fresh air for To­ba­go say­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion has al­ready sent a let­ter to in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“We must di­ver­si­fy our econ­o­my and the time is right to do it.

“We’re look­ing for 3 per cent of the 10 per cent room tax to do it, to deal with des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing, and al­so for in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing to ac­tu­al­ly make tourism work.”

But cou­pled with those is­sues, he ad­mit­ted that fight­ing crime must be a top pri­or­i­ty.

Mean­while, across To­ba­go, many were hap­py with the elec­tion re­sults and the change it could bring to the is­land.

One man said, “It’s a very great change for the coun­try, the peo­ple and for ed­u­ca­tion in this Trinidad. I am very hap­py with the re­sults. I do hope it’s re­al­ly for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try and peo­ple.”

An­oth­er said, “I feel very good, re­al­ly great. I want this par­ty to get some more time to do what they re­al­ly want to do.”

One woman said, “Well so far I feel so good and so great be­cause we were un­der re­al pres­sure from the present gov­ern­ment. It’s great we get a trade. Let them fel­las go home and have a rest man.”

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, PDP leader Wat­son Duke said he is ex­pect­ed to speak on the out­come and share his hopes for the com­ing years in a press con­fer­ence some­time next week.