The funeral service for former Tobago House of Assembly, chief secretary, Hochoy Charles, will be held this Thursday.
The service will take place at 11am at the Shaw Park Complex, Tobago, following a viewing of the body from 9am.
Charles, the first chief secretary in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), died on December 31st at the age of 77.
Former THA minority leader Ashworth Jack, said there were a number of things that would have been pioneered by Charles that he did not get enough credit for.
in a Newsday interview, he said: “Hochoy was the first chief secretary that had the responsibility of setting up how the new Tobago House of Assembly works, and of course because there were so many changes that had to be made. He took a lot of licks for implementing the changes that had to be made based on Act #40 of 1996.”
He said in terms of some of the impactful development, he said Charles was instrumental in the acquisition of free tertiary education.
“He was the one who looked at Tobago’s needs, looked at the percentage of Tobagonians that had exposure to education and the reason why most families couldn’t afford it. He would have implemented paying for a number of doctors and lawyers and engineers to go and study, and the assembly would have footed the bill. When that started then, the government in Trinidad followed what Tobago was doing and introduced dollar for dollar.
“When we’re boasting of how many doctors we have with Tobago parentage we tend to forget that the person who started that was Mr Charles.”
He said there was a resurgence on Tobago’s infrastructural development and that too was championed by Charles.
“Hochoy’s contribution to Tobago cannot be understated.”
He said Charles was a very stern individual and most people focused on that instead of all his other achievements.