PM Rowley battered THA, shamed Chief Secretary

Anselm Richards

Crime Economist (MSc/BSc)

After three years in office and at his first public open-mike forum with Tobagonians at the Scarborough Library, last Thursday (August 23), Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, in his usual unrefined manner, was brutally hard on the Tobago House of Assembly and Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles. As a matter of fact, the PM, by his answers and statements, appeared concerned and unhappy with how the PNM administration of the THA directed and led the island’s development over the last 17 years.

The PM was embarrassingly frank about the misguided thinking of his THA comrades who have destroyed the pristine and natural beauty of the Castara beach with construction of what he described as a “monstrosity of a building on the beach front.” He lamented that this was not development and warning against building any such monstrosity on Blood Bay beach, as Tobago’s pristine and beautiful beaches must be preserved as heritage assets.

I support the PM on this issue, as most Tobagonians would, and invite him to immediately go and see the very destruction that his ill-informed PNM colleagues, under leadership of the former Chief Secretary and now High Commissioner to London, Mr Orville London, inflicted on Charlotteville. They have misguidedly constructed a three-storey commercial building and a two storey- fishing facility on the Charlotteville beach front, thus, permanently destroying the pristine and natural aesthetics associated with the view of the beach front and the setting of the sun. So, Mr Prime Minister, please go to Charlotteville and be assured that your hearth will bleed. And add the TT$1.6 billion monstrosity of the cultural complex at Shaw Park to the matrix.

The PM battered the THA and its operatives whom he claimed went public and held meetings on the pending acquisition of lands in Crown Point for the construction of the new airport terminal and associated supporting amenities. He charged the THA with acting prematurely when it held public consultations with residents and could not provide answers/information to many of the real concerns raised.

The PM said Government has not yet decided on what would be built as the consultants were still working on the designs, and as such, they don’t know how much land would be needed. He went further, stating that his government will only take lands that are actually needed for the development and that 84 acres mooted by the THA for acquisition was totally unknown to his government and therefore grossly premature on the part of the THA.

Here is the real concern, the THA started acting prematurely since May (2018), if we are to believe the PM. One would like to know when did he and his central government realised that the THA was acting prematurely and causing some much unnecessary pain and discomfort to the residents in the 84-acres block? Why is it that he and his central government did not intervene before and stop the THA from spreading “fake” information? Why did he wait until his Tobago-leg of his Conversations with the PM to intervene, some three months after the fact?

The PM also boasted that his government made TT$20 million available for an island-wide agriculture access road development programme to open up new lands for agriculture. He publicly questioned the THA as to why the road from Goodwood to Mt St George was not on the list of roads the PM received. What is in this TT$20M agriculture access roads programme that has the PM so vested in the details, to point of receiving and study the list of access roads? Is it that PM is now running the THA?

The PM might very well be running that THA, when he, in a public forum broadcast live to the world, instructed Mr Kelvin Charles, the Chief Secretary of the THA, to take his seat, while he was in the process of explaining the reason and hopes of Tobago to have a “bus terminal” constructed in the next fiscal year. This was the most shameful incident of the meeting which came like a 6.9 seismic event, knocking the Chief Secretary of his feet onto his seat with an accompanying uproar of laughter from all in attendance, including the belittled Charles.

Social media was immediately populated with comments, some calling on the PM to apologise and others saying it is Rowley who running the THA, Mr Charles isjust a figurehead. It was an unbelievable embarrassing occasion for the Chief Secretary, this notwithstanding, there may have been absolutely no malicious intent on the part of the PM. However, I should like to think that PM is old enough and has been in national leadership far too long to make such an unforced elementary error, especially in front of the world. Unfortunately, the PM has further wounded the likeability of an already bland and chiefly silent Kelvin Charles.

Let me close with the PM’s statement on the Galleons Passage. After his government has mismanaged and virtually dismantled the inter-island sea-transportation system and Tobagonians have been suffering for near years, the PM apparently feels good telling us that the Galleons Passage is not a fast ferry. And warned that we should not travel on it and then complain that it was slow. The Galleons Passage was available, and the price was good, so his government bought it. There was no concern nor appreciation for the fact that the Galleons Passage may not be fit for the purpose. Incredible!