Douglas: PDP to tackle unemployment, housing

PROGRESSIVE Democratic Patriots (PDP) Tobago West candidate Curtis Douglas says the party will push to create jobs and construct affordable houses for Tobagonians if it wins the two Tobago seats in the April 28 general election.

He said the party also intended to raise the salaries of Unemployment Relief Programme and CEPEP workers to a living wage of $5,000 a month.

Douglas, president of the All Tobago Fisherfolk Association, claimed unemployment in Tobago was the highest in the island’s history.

“Unemployment is sky high, the highest it has ever been in Tobago. There is no new job creation,” he told Newsday on April 24.

Describing the PDP’s “ground” campaign, thus far, as excellent, Douglas claimed people had been responding well to the party.

“People are saying that we are the only party that have come to them with solutions to the problems they are facing. They say everybody coming and say ‘Vote for we’ and is one set of fluff talk and nothing.”

Regarding its plans, he said the party wanted to create 7,500 new jobs and build 20 houses in every community to address the demand.

“When we win, these are the things we would like to happen.”

Douglas claimed many Tobagonians were also disgusted by the manner in which Chief Secretary and Tobago’s People’s Party political leader Farley Augustine and the members of the executive severed ties with the Watson Duke-led PDP, which won the December 6, 2021, THA election by a landslide.

Duke, assemblyman for Belle Garden East/Roxborough/Delaford, is the party’s Tobago East candidate in the upcoming election.

Douglas said, “We just know that when we canvas, people saying to us that we must correct the wrong that was done to Watson Duke. They even give him a name: Judas Farley and his team.

“They are saying that Tobago needs a Tobago-based party to go down to Trinidad to argue about Tobago’s business because the next side (PNM) they have been there for ten years and all they getting is a bottle of air and even now they not offering Tobago people nothing.”

He claimed the PDP, which held spot meetings in several villages, had been running a clean campaign.

“Our campaign demonstrates that we are not in anybody financier’s pocket. We eh take no money from any financier.”

But he observed that the other parties in the race, mainly the PNM and TPP, have spent a significant amount of money on advertising, signage and paraphernalia.

“Even when we driving on the roundabouts, we're seeing it, because I don’t know since when roundabouts does vote and walkover does vote. And people putting up flags like is flag party.

“All that is going on, but yet still people can’t get jobs because unemployment has been the biggest cry on the campaign trail. What we seeing is a lot of big trucks, big flag and a whole heap of posters.”