Dr Aubrey Arm­strong, a for­mer se­nior Guyanese politi­cian, yes­ter­day led Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her par­lia­men­tary team in in­tense dis­cus­sions as a four-day re­treat be­gan in To­ba­go.

Arm­strong, an ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment con­sul­tant, un­der­took a two-and-a-half-hour ses­sion to kick start a Gov­ern­ment work­shop, a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said yes­ter­day.

The con­sul­tant, who has worked in the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, un­der­took team-build­ing ac­tiv­i­ties as the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were bro­ken in­to sev­er­al round­table groups.

The ses­sion, which be­gan at 4.30 pm, was the first in an agen­da of ex­ten­sive week­end di­a­logue. From 9.30 am to­day, Dr Daniel Shapiro, of the Wash­ing­ton Speak­ers' Bu­reau, is due to make the first of two pre­sen­ta­tions.

He is sched­uled to be fol­lowed by jour­nal­ist Tony Fras­er.

The open­ing ses­sion of the work­shop was at­tend­ed by the full Cab­i­net, ex­cept for Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, who is on of­fi­cial busi­ness abroad and is sched­uled to ar­rive this week­end. Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors al­so are tak­ing part in the re­treat, which is be­ing held at Co­co Reef Ho­tel, Pi­geon Point. Ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar held a one-hour meet­ing with Orville Lon­don, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

The meet­ing, de­scribed as be­ing held in a cor­dial at­mos­phere, came short­ly af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced sev­er­al pro-To­ba­go ini­tia­tives at the week­ly post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence. She spoke of plans for an in­sti­tu­tion on the is­land to em­brace the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Costatt. The long-out­stand­ing Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal is to be com­plet­ed, it was re­vealed. A fire sta­tion is to be con­struct­ed and Van­guard Ho­tel is due to be re­opened by the end of the year, it was stat­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was warm­ly greet­ed by THA staffers at the Ad­min­is­tra­tive Cen­tre, Scar­bor­ough. Sources said the Prime Min­is­ter and Lon­don dis­cussed tourism in the face of in­creased ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy in To­ba­go. In­creased flights and sail­ings were re­spon­si­ble for the im­proved tourism fig­ures, Lon­don said he hoped more ho­tel stock would lead to more air­line flights.