Webster-Roy to Duke: Claim your own crown

PNM Tobago East candidate Ayanna Webster-Roy on Monday scoffed at the notion that Roxborough was being developed because of the threat of Roxborough/Delaford electoral representative Watson Duke. Webster-Roy, Duke and Juliana Henry-King (One Tobago Voice) are the candidates for the Tobago East seat in the August 10 general election.

“You can’t be in the stands cheering on the team and claim the victory,” Webster-Roy said on Monday at PNM's women forum at the Signal Hill Secondary School auditorium.

In an interactive segment, Webster-Roy was asked about recent statements made by PDP deputy leader Farley Augustine at a political meeting in Delaford.

Augustine said the construction of a police station, fire station and hospital only occurred because Duke was elected representative for the area in the 2017 THA elections.

"As soon as we vote Watson, hospital build and in under a year, hospital nearly done… So when I tell you if you want action, look how much years we here fiddling, fiddling with this autonomy thing, then we need to send for the action man to do our business,” Augustine said.

Responding with a football analogy, Webster-Roy said, “It’s the players on the field scoring the goal, therefore, they are responsible for that.” She said, during her first budget contribution she laid out a vision for Tobago East, which alluded to the re-emergence of Roxborough as the second town of Tobago.

“That wasn’t by accident. I grew up in Roxborough and Roxborough is where my formative years and my mind and my character was shaped, and I remember the Roxborough that was the commercial hub for Tobago East.

“For me, over the years seeing the decline of the town of Roxborough, it troubled me. So when I had the opportunity to become a Member of Parliament and the opportunity to sit in a Cabinet and help to shape policy and help the way resources are allocated, it was a strategic move not of Ayanna Webster-Roy but a strategic move of the government led by Dr the Honourable Keith Christopher Rowley, fully supported by a PNM Tobago House of Assembly to recreate in Tobago East and in particular Roxborough, a town.”

She said, the work has only just started in Tobago East and would continue in every single community.

“So Mr Duke sitting on the sidelines and cussing, making noise, throwing old talk – that didn’t bring anything to Roxborough.

“The working within the Cabinet and the Executive Council of the Tobago House of Assembly (did that). Old talk doesn’t build a community or a constituency, it is the work of the technocrats and the work of the persons who sit where decision are made,” she said.

In a press release on Sunday, PNM Tobago Council political leader Tracy Davidson-Celestine noted that while the PNM is pleased that its ongoing work in Roxborough and Tobago East has been acknowledged even by the Opposition, she noted nearly all the projects Duke has been claiming credit for were conceptualised, financed, or started long before he decided to get into electoral politics.

The release pointed out that the Roxborough hospital, administrative complex, police station and the fire station have been on the front burner “since the days of Mr Hilton Sandy,” noting that delays in realising these projects were largely due to a lack of co-operation from state agencies during the People's Partnership administration from 2010-2015.