Kerr chastises Duke for not attending THA sittings regularly

THA Division of Education, Research and Technology Assistant Secretary Orlando Kerr has chastised Roxborough/Argyle assemblyman Watson Duke for not attending sittings of the House regularly.

He did so on Thursday night while contributing to debate on the $4.5 billion budget in the Assembly Legislature, Scarborough.

Duke, political leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots, attended the sitting but left after Minority Leader Kelvon Morris’ budget response.

Kerr said Duke should have stayed to listen to the members’ contributions.

He said, “I tried to figure out why he got on a plane and came to Tobago, today, because if you come to Tobago today and you care about your district, the least you can do is take one day because you never here. Take one day and say, ‘I will represent my area today.’

“But you came and listened to two and a half hours of nothing and then you left, when the real contribution and real meat of the thing, you missed all of that.”

Kerr said Duke did not need to listen to Morris’ contribution.

“The reality is that what was said before, you didn’t really need to be there. Is best you come late.”

He observed that since the executive first entered the House in December 2021, Duke has never sat in on an entire sitting.

“That is what I was talking about when I say it is about demonstration rather than what you see because if you are really interested in representing your area and you really love Tobago, you can’t miss this. You would want to be a part of this. And that tells me that that whole thing is a farce. It is not about what people say but what they do.”

Kerr, a former TTUTA Tobago officer, joked that he has “half of a representative.

“I live between L’Anse Fourmi/Speyside (electoral district) and Argyle/Roxborough. So I have half of a representative, So I have to make do with that.

“But one of the things that I have attempted to do is to try my best to assist the persons in that area because I realise that we don’t have a representative.”

As such, Kerr assured residents of Louis D’Or that they will get their lights soon.

In the run up to the January 2021 THA election which ended in a six-six deadlock, former PNM Tobago Council leader Tracy Davidson-Celestine had also referred to Duke as an absentee representative during her stint as a councillor and Health Secretary.

At that time, Duke was the assemblyman for Roxborough/Delaford.

But the electoral district was changed to Roxborough/Argyle after an amendment was made to the law to increase from 12 to 15 the number of seats in the THA.

This was done to eliminate the possibility of a tie in future THA elections boundaries shifted.

At a meeting at the Roxborough Secondary School, Davidson-Celestine had observed, “

“Since the time I was there, I could count the number of times on my finger that he was present in the House to represent you, the people of Roxborough/Delaford. The thing about that sitting is that it is held once a month and you sit in the House by virtue of the fact that you would have won office to represent a particular electoral district.

“And so, if that is what he is paid to do, and cannot attend once per month, can you be guaranteed good representation from him?”