PDP ‘Fed Up’, Introduces Their Own THA ‘Executive Council’

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots(PDP) says its six mem­bers, elect­ed as as­sem­bly­men fol­low­ing Jan­u­ary 25, 2021, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, won’t stand-by anymore to be­gin serv­ing their con­stituents.

Furthermore, the par­ty has cre­at­ed an al­ter­na­tive Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil to do as such.

The coun­cil will be­gin work from Mon­day.

Far­ley Au­gus­tine, one of the par­ty’s representative lead­ers, said this yes­ter­day at a me­dia con­fer­ence.

Au­gus­tine said the par­ty made ef­forts to re­solve the dead­lock brought about by the PDP and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), win­ning six seats each in a 12-man As­sem­bly.

He said al­though the PDP put for­ward a so­lu­tion to re­solve the dead­lock, the PNM has act­ed like it is “fear­ful” of the PDP and not aided in the common gov­er­nance is­sue.

Au­gus­tine said the PDP is as yet open to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PNM however should hold the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive, rul­ing To­ba­go dependent on the 2017 THA elec­tions re­sults, ac­count­able.

He said he will head the al­ter­na­tive coun­cil. He is the al­ter­na­tive Chief Sec­re­tary and re­spon­si­ble for the Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my.

Au­gus­tine said Dr. Confidence B.Yis­rael is al­ter­na­tive Sec­re­tary for the Di­vi­sions of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment and Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry and Fish­eries.

Pas­tor Ter­ance Baynes will head the Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Youth Af­fairs and Sport Di­vi­sion.

Ian Pol­lard is accountable for the Di­vi­sions of Set­tle­ments, Ur­ban Re­new­al and Pub­lic Util­i­ties and In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and the En­vi­ron­ment while Zor­isha Hack­ett will be re­spon­si­ble for the Di­vi­sions of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy and Tourism, Cul­ture and Trans­porta­tion.

Wat­son Duke, the par­ty’s chief, will hold no port­fo­lio.

In­stead, he will be re­spon­si­ble for another port­fo­lio–The To­ba­go House of Trade, Au­gus­tine says.

He said this new port­fo­lio is a cam­paign guarantee to rep­re­sent To­ba­go in Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the PDP, in the new port­fo­lio, Duke will fo­cus on “elim­i­nat­ing prob­lems on the air connect; re­mov­ing value dis­par­i­ties be­tween the To­ba­go and Trinidad cus­tomers ; es­tab­lish­ing a sub­stan­tial mar­ket share in Trinidad for To­ba­go merchandise.”

On the is­sue of ac­count­abil­i­ty, Au­gus­tine said the PDP can­not stand by un­til it re­ceives an­oth­er Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port on the THA’s spend­ing.

“Through­out the last 16 years we have not had a favourable as­sess­ment from an Au­di­tor Gen­er­al yet and so this is the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to come to­geth­er and craft out re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance,” he said. he said.

The THA, the base from which all As­sem­bly­men op­er­ate, has not been ful­ly con­sti­tut­ed as the 12 As­sem­bly­men, who won their seats on Jan­u­ary 25th, 2021, couldn’t de­cide on a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

From that point forward, the PDP pro­posed the both par­ties join to share To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance un­til a res­o­lu­tion is found.

The pro­pos­al was prof­fered at a meet­ing led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. The pow­er-shar­ing talks are at a stale­mate.