Camille McEach­nie

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has said it will nev­er vote for any pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer ex­cept one it nom­i­nates.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) leg­isla­tive arm con­tin­ues in lim­bo be­cause a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer has not been se­lect­ed.

The 2017-2021 Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, card­ed to va­cate of­fice af­ter the elec­tions, con­tin­ues to gov­ern the is­land as pro­vid­ed by the THA stand­ing or­ders.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, the par­ty’s To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer who is nom­i­nat­ed had the cast­ing vote.

That vote de­ter­mines who will form the next ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil and the poli­cies go­ing fol­lowed, she added.

Ac­cord­ing to the THA Act, the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil al­so has con­trol over the is­land’s funds.

She re­mind­ed that Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis pub­licly called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last Sun­day to take the is­sue to Par­lia­ment and amend the THA Act. Row­ley is al­so the PNM’s na­tion­al leader.

She al­so said the par­ty is will­ing to adopt the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill’s clause re­lat­ing to an in­crease in the elec­toral dis­tricts.

“Some have ar­gued 13 (elec­toral dis­tricts) but we have ad­vanced 15, not from our un­der­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, but be­cause To­bag­o­ni­ans have said we want to see that,” the is­land coun­cil leader said.

Mean­while, the cur­rent Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil re­main­ing in con­trol of To­ba­go’s re­sources is not sit­ting well with some To­bag­o­ni­ans. This is ac­cord­ing to the re­ject­ed THA elec­tions can­di­date- Prov­i­dence/Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah elec­toral dis­trict, Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes.

“Peo­ple are be­ing in­cit­ed to do cer­tain things. I want to say that threats have been is­sued to my fam­i­ly and my­self, via so­cial me­dia, about this par­tic­u­lar is­sue,” Des Vi­gnes said at the brief­ing.

Asked if he has ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, he said no. He al­so said the per­sons who made the threats have since delet­ed their so­cial me­dia pro­files. He runs the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries, and the En­vi­ron­ment.

Des Vi­gnes, the par­ty’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, con­tin­ues as a mem­ber of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil al­though some As­sem­bly­men, who held sim­i­lar port­fo­lios, were asked to re­sign as they had not of­fered them­selves up for re-elec­tion in the elec­tions. They are no longer as­sem­bly­men and the PDP area rep­re­sen­ta­tives now oc­cu­py those seats in the as­sem­bly cham­ber.

Chief Sec­re­tary and As­sem­bly­man for Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant An­cil Den­nis re­quest­ed the res­ig­na­tion of sec­re­taries who did not of­fer them­selves up for re-elec­tion on Jan­u­ary 25. Kelvin Charles, Jo­mo Pitt, and Hay­den Spencer have re­signed.

All as­sis­tant sec­re­taries al­so left of­fice, a state­ment from Den­nis’ of­fice said.