Roxborough complex to 'ease' East Tobago's stress

KINNESHA GEORGE-HARRY

Seven months after being officially commissioned, keys have been distributed and the Roxborough administrative complex is now open for business.

Last Wednesday, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles, along with chief administrator Bernadette Solomon-Koroma, distributed the keys to tenants during a ceremony at the complex.

The construction started in July 2017 and was completed in April 2019 at a cost of $33 million, it was commissioned in July 2019.

In addressing attendees, Solomon-Koroma said for the THA, the complex was an investment in people.

She added that as wishful as it may sound, the assembly is connecting people to their dreams by allowing them easier access to critical services that others, who have them closer at hand, may take for granted.

“The people of Roxborough and environs know about when they have to travel to Shirvan for Licensing services or to Scarborough for vital services, including the Board of Inland Revenue, the Registrar General’s office and other services that will be provided here.

“Taken separately, this complex will ease the stress on people in East Tobago to get things done. People who have jobs and children, those who are educators and those who are students, those who are less fortunate and those who are kind enough to provide the support needed.”

She said that taken along with the infrastructural development happening in the community, the complex represents change that will mean a better quality of life for the residents especially the differently abled and those living in more rural areas such as Speyside and Charlotteville.

But she did have some advice for the tenants.

“Be mindful of your responsibility to the public; provide services but deliver service. Seek not to be task-oriented but to look at the bigger picture of Tobago’s advancement. You are an important part in the machinery that is development, and what you do from here on can be an important part of history, even as we look forward.”

Charles said the keys distributed will open more than the physical doors in the building but will also open the doors of convenience, equity and access.

“This is even more significant for me than when I commissioned the building, because now the building would be put to use in ways that will reflect the promise we made to those persons living in the east – that we would decentralise some of our services, and therefore if they were to come to Scarborough for some of these services, it is only because they choose so to do.”

He said he hopes the undertaking would encourage people in the east to become “a little more risk-taking,” pointing to the establishment of an office for the Business Development Unit of the THA Division of Community Development, Enterprise Development and Labour.

Other services he said would be available are the TT Electricity Commission (TTEC), public health, licensing department, TTPOST, a unit of the THA Division of Tourism, Culture and Transportation, Board of Inland Revenue, Registrar General’s office, Elections and Boundaries Commission as well as the THA Rural Development Unit under the Office of the Chief Secretary.