Tracy on zipline: I was excited to expand tourism

Political leader of the PNM Tobago Council Tracy Davidson-Celestine is maintaining her innocence in the controversial zipline matter.

In 2015, the Division of Tourism and Transportation announced the1.5-kilometre zipline project while she was secretary, but it was never completed.

Speaking on Tobago Channel Five’s morning programme, Rise and Shine, on Monday, Davidson-Celestine said she had been excited about the project, because it would “expand the tourism product offering on the island, and so I did what every secretary would do to get the approval in order to expend that kind of sum.”

She said the process is that a proposal comes to the secretary from the heads in the division. She added that the proposal identified the benefits to Tobago, the target audience, the timeframe for implementing the project and the cost.

“A note was prepared and taken to the executive council for approval. At the executive council, of course I would have to argue why it is that this project is an important one. It was since approved, and after being approved, it goes through the channel, that is through the administrator. The administrator would operationalise it with heads in the division.

"It was tendered for by an arm of the Tobago House of Assembly, which would have been E-IDCOTT (Eco-Industrial Development Company of Tobago) and I think that E-IDCOTT was somewhat responsible for project-managing the zipline project.”

She said the project had "barely got off the ground" when she left office to become ambassador to Costa Rica in April 2017.

She said the process was followed to realise the zipline project, which involved quite a number of "different layers."

“The project went through all of the different channels in a very, very transparent way and so to indicate to members of the public that I, as the secretary, was involved in this project in a corrupt way – of course that is defamation, especially in a situation where the auditor general is saying that they have found nothing untoward in terms of the project.”

Before the January 25 THA election, deputy political leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) Farley Augustine began calling Davidson-Celestine to answer to taxpayers about the planned project. While campaigning, he also produced what he said was a copy of a management letter of an auditor general’s report as well as the auditor general’s report for the period ending September 2016, which he claimed detailed serious discrepancies in the process of setting up the zipline. He repeatedly called on the PNM leader to "come clean."

In response, Davidson-Celestine called on him to clear her name and on February 22, she announced her intention to sue him for defamation.

When contacted, Augustine, who said he is ready to go to court, said he had received a mailed package at the end of last week but was yet to read the document. He promised to take a look at it and give an update.