Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Max­ie Cuffie has in­di­cat­ed that he will not be of­fer­ing him­self as a can­di­date in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

Cuffie made the an­nounce­ment via a Face­book post on Wednes­day night.

"My dear Con­stituents, as the in­cum­bent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, I wish to in­form you that, af­ter prayer­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and dis­cus­sion with my fam­i­ly, I have de­cid­ed not to ac­cept any nom­i­na­tion to con­test the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tions as a PNM can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy.

I do not wish to have my past health is­sues be­come a dis­trac­tion from the crit­i­cal is­sues the coun­try will be fac­ing dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign. This is de­spite my get­ting writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion let­ters from both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al med­ical ex­perts at­test­ing to the fact that I have made a com­plete re­cov­ery from the med­ical is­sues which af­fect­ed me in Sep­tem­ber 2017, to the ef­fect that I can with­stand the rigours of an elec­tion cam­paign and those is­sues are not ex­pect­ed to af­fect me in the fu­ture. For this, I re­main grate­ful to God.

I give the as­sur­ance that I will whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port the PNM’s re-elec­tion cam­paign to en­sure the preser­va­tion of good gov­er­nance to the Con­stituen­cy and the coun­try. Rest as­sured too, that con­sis­tent with my oath of of­fice, I will con­tin­ue to work to­wards the com­ple­tion of all projects aimed at en­hanc­ing your lives for the re­main­der of my term in of­fice.

I ap­pre­ci­ate the tremen­dous love and sup­port giv­en by all, the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive, Staff, Par­ty Groups and all my beloved con­stituents over the last four and a half years. It con­tin­ues to be a great ho­n­our and plea­sure to rep­re­sent and raise the pro­file of the Con­stituen­cy of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and I re­main pleased at the sig­nif­i­cant strides we have made in en­hanc­ing in­fra­struc­ture, home im­prove­ment and the cre­ation of em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties across the con­stituen­cy, which in­clude but are not lim­it­ed to:

the open­ing of the bridge to Manuel Con­go

the en­hance­ment of the Tal­paro Bridge

the Mun­do Nue­vo land­slip Recla­ma­tion Project

`the Todds Sta­tion Road land­slip Recla­ma­tion Project

the sta­bi­liza­tion of the bridge at Savary Road Ex­ten­sion, Las Lo­mas

the com­ple­tion of bridge works along Mamoral Road

bring­ing ICT in­fra­struc­ture to Todds Road, Ca­paro and sur­round­ing ar­eas for the first time

the build­ing and open­ing of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Las Lo­mas and the re­fur­bish­ment of the Cen­tre in Todd’s Road

the re­vi­tal­iza­tion of Cross Cres­cent Park, Phase 4, La Hor­quet­ta

the up­grade works on Phas­es 5 and 6 Recre­ation Grounds, La Hor­quet­ta

the com­ple­tion of the flood mit­i­ga­tion ex­er­cise in Green­vale Park

bring­ing ad­e­quate light­ing to the San Raphael, Todds Road & Brazil Recre­ation Grounds

se­cur­ing land tenure for con­stituents at Waller­field Gar­dens and oth­er ar­eas of the con­stituen­cy

im­prov­ing wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture in Tamana and Tal­paro

en­sur­ing the erec­tion of ad­e­quate street-light­ing through­out the con­stituen­cy

fa­cil­i­tat­ing the Home Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme for home­own­ers and res­i­dents in the con­stituen­cy

the cham­pi­oning of the open­ing of the Tamana In-Teck Park, which pro­vid­ed em­ploy­ment for my con­stituents

As I will con­tin­ue to pur­sue the com­ple­tion of my PhD stud­ies up­on the ex­pi­ra­tion of my term, please feel com­fort­ed that I will al­ways re­main avail­able to the con­stituen­cy which I have been rep­re­sent­ing proud­ly and con­tin­ue to do so.

May God con­tin­ue to bless you and all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

With kind re­gards,

Max­ie Cuffie, MP"