The po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley told Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine he ap­proves of the Main Ridge For­est zi­pline project and wants her to con­tin­ue it, af­ter the Jan­u­ary 25 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

That is if the par­ty wins the elec­tions and she be­comes Chief Sec­re­tary.

David­son-Ce­les­tine is the par­ty’s Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill can­di­date.

The project be­came a hot is­sue on the cam­paign trail af­ter the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) re­vealed de­tails about it on Jan­u­ary 10 at their Gar­den­side, Scar­bor­ough, car park meet­ing.

One of the PDP’s deputies, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, said the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2016 man­age­ment let­ter on the is­sue, re­vealed that on­ly rope was dis­cov­ered when the de­part­ment looked for the $2.5 mil­lion ma­te­r­i­al and equip­ment spent by the As­sem­bly, on the zi­pline.

Au­gus­tine al­so said the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil note ap­prov­ing the zi­pline showed it was bud­get­ed for $4 mil­lion. He claimed he had re­ceipts to show, $3.5 mil­lion was al­ready spent.

The PDP deputy threat­ened to send the new in­for­ma­tion to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and Au­di­tor gen­er­al.

Dur­ing the spend, David­son-Ce­les­tine was the Tourism Sec­re­tary.

Mak­ing his first pub­lic ap­pear­ance since un­der­go­ing an an­gio­plas­ty pro­ce­dure, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley told sup­port­ers in Rox­bor­ough that the pub­lic should ig­nore the PDP’s state­ments be­cause they are “ly­ing and try­ing to con­fuse you.”

He said he wants the project to con­tin­ue.

“To­day I staunch­ly ap­prove the idea that the THA should build a zi­pline so lo­cals and for­eign­ers could ride that zi­pline and ex­pe­ri­ence the rain­for­est as they can nowhere else in the world.”

He added, “Tonight I want to tell Tra­cy David­son, one of the first things you do when you be­come Chief Sec­re­tary is to res­ur­rect that project and get it done.”

He said she left the As­sem­bly soon af­ter the project start­ed.

“April 2017 Tra­cy left the As­sem­bly with that project...on the way. She nev­er came back in­to As­sem­bly busi­ness un­til she won the lead­er­ship of the PNM (Jan­u­ary 2020),” Row­ley said.

David­son-Ce­les­tine be­came this coun­try’s am­bas­sador to Cos­ta Ri­ca in 2017.

He said To­bag­o­ni­ans should not al­low the PDP to de­rail the project like they did with the San­dals Re­sort In­ter­na­tion­al project.

In Jan­u­ary 2019, the re­sort chain pulled out of the pro­posed To­ba­go 700-1000- room project cit­ing pub­lic crit­i­cism.

PDP and UNC re­la­tion­ship

Dr Row­ley again dou­bled down on his claim of a close re­la­tion­ship be­tween the PDP and UNC. The PDP is “the proxy of the UNC,” he said. It’s a claim he has made re­peat­ed­ly.

He said as the head of this coun­try’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, he has in­for­ma­tion avail­able on­ly to him.

He asked why the PDP was not con­cerned about oth­er au­di­tor gen­er­al’s re­ports, es­pe­cial­ly those un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment from 2010-2015.

Read­ing from a 2012 au­di­tor gen­er­al re­port, he re­vealed some in­for­ma­tion.

“Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion page 35, $1.9 mil­lion be­tween June 30 and some­thing...Cab­i­net ap­proval was not found for $2 mil­lion in that min­istry.

“Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment page 39, build­ing leased not oc­cu­pied $26 mil­lion of li­a­bil­i­ty of which they pay­ing $9 mil­lion in each year.

“The PDP and their friends...should be con­cerned about that,” Row­ley said.