STO­RY BY CAMILLE McEACH­NIE

Kelvin Charles has re­signed, as promised, from the post of Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

Charles promised to re­sign af­ter he lost the post of head of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil in the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tions in Jan­u­ary.

In a state­ment from the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary, Charles an­nounced that he demits of­fice.

Here is the full state­ment.

CHIEF SEC­RE­TARY KELVIN CHARLES HAS DEMIT­TED OF­FICE

(Smith­field, To­ba­go, April 30, 2020):  The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) ad­vis­es the pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go and by ex­ten­sion Trinidad, that the Ho­n­ourable Kelvin Charles has demit­ted of­fice as Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA, in keep­ing with his promise to leave of­fice at the end of April 2020.

Mr. Charles says,

“It was a plea­sure serv­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go over the last three (3) years.  My jour­ney was filled with many ex­hil­a­rat­ing mo­ments as well as some chal­leng­ing times but this in­deed is the bal­ance of life.  I met some re­mark­able peo­ple along the way and I give God thanks for all of them.  I spe­cial­ly thank those with whom I worked close­ly, es­pe­cial­ly those who sup­port­ed my vi­sion and con­tributed to the strides that To­ba­go was able to make in three (3) years.  Your hard work and com­mit­ment to the progress of the is­land did not go un­no­ticed.

As I leave of­fice, I would like to sin­cere­ly thank the peo­ple of To­ba­go for plac­ing their con­fi­dence in me and en­trust­ing the lead­er­ship of this great is­land in my hands.  The time has now come for me to hand over the reins.  As I leave, it is my wish that To­ba­go con­tin­ues on the path of un­prece­dent­ed growth, as is ev­i­dent over the last three years.  It is al­so my sin­cere hope that this growth will en­com­pass every sphere of the is­land: phys­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al and more so the growth and de­vel­op­ment of our most im­por­tant re­source – you the peo­ple.  I would al­so like to en­cour­age all of us to hold dear to our hearts, the at­trib­ut­es that tra­di­tion­al­ly char­ac­ter­ized the peo­ple of To­ba­go – in­tegri­ty, moral­i­ty, hon­esty and in­dus­tri­ous­ness.  Let us nev­er for­get the foun­da­tion laid by our fore par­ents.  We must al­so en­deav­our to pride our­selves on pos­i­tiv­i­ty and pa­tri­o­tism, for with­out such, we will strug­gle to put coun­try be­fore self and es­sen­tial­ly de­prive our­selves of the glo­ry that we are ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing as an is­land and Na­tion.

On be­half of my fam­i­ly and my­self, I sin­cere­ly thank you To­ba­go for your love and sup­port shown.  May God con­tin­ue to bless and pro­tect our strip of par­adise.”

The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary thanks Mr. Charles for his ser­vice and ex­tends best wish­es to him and his fam­i­ly on their con­tin­ued jour­ney.