Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

Leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's To­ba­go Coun­cil Orville Lon­don will re­port­ed­ly re­move Hilton Sandy as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, one of the suc­cess­ful can­di­dates in Mon­day's 12-0 THA elec­tion vic­to­ry, is tipped to take over the po­si­tion, a par­ty source told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

David­son-Ce­les­tine and God­win Adams were be­ing con­sid­ered to re­place Sandy, who had held the po­si­tion for four years. It is part of a suc­ces­sion plan Lon­don will im­ple­ment in prepa­ra­tion for his de­par­ture at the end of the cur­rent term. But David­son-Ce­les­tine, the younger of the two, will even­tu­al­ly get the nod, the source said.

How­ev­er, there al­so was spec­u­la­tion that Lon­don's de­ci­sion came af­ter as­sess­ing the pos­si­ble im­pact of Sandy's con­tro­ver­sial "Cal­cut­ta ship" state­ment, made dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign for the as­sem­bly. The source said Lon­don yes­ter­day met with all the suc­cess­ful can­di­dates and dis­cussed their suit­abil­i­ty for port­fo­lios and oth­er mat­ters re­lat­ing to the THA.

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards will swear in Lon­don and his new ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil to­day at the THA's ninth in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny at James Park, Scar­bor­ough, from 10 am. A state­ment yes­ter­day af­ter­noon from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion of the THA to wit­ness to­day's in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

Apart from the 12 as­sem­bly­men, the THA Act pro­vides for the chief sec­re­tary to add three coun­cil­lors to his ex­ec­u­tive, mak­ing it 15 peo­ple. With so many peo­ple on the ex­ec­u­tive, each di­vi­sion will have both a sec­re­tary and an as­sis­tant sec­re­tary.

The new sec­re­taries

Chief Sec­re­tary: Orville Lon­don

Di­vi­sion of Tourism and Trans­porta­tion

�2 Sec­re­tary: Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary: Han­del Beck­les

Ed­u­ca­tion, Youth Af­fairs and Sports

�2 Sec­re­tary: Gary Melville

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Youth Af­fairs and Sports: De­on Isaac:

Agri­cul­ture, Ma­rine Af­fairs, Mar­ket­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment

�2 Sec­re­tary: God­win Adams

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary: Hay­den Spencer

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture

�2 Sec­re­tary: Dr Denise Tsoi-a-Fatt�An­gus

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary: An­cil Den­nis

Fi­nance and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment

�2 Sec­re­tary: Joel Jack

Health and So­cial Ser­vices

�2 Sec­re­tary: Clau­dia Groome-Duke:

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for So­cial Ser­vices: Shel­don Cun­ning­ham:

Set­tle­ments and Labour

�2 Sec­re­tary: Huey Cadette

In­fra­struc­ture and Pub­lic Util­i­ties

�2 Sec­re­tary: Hilton Sandy

�2 As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary: Jo­mo Pitt