Area Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill and Sec­re­tary for Youth Af­fairs and Sport in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Jo­mo Pitt will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion in the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion card­ed for ear­ly 2021.

Speak­ing dur­ing the bud­get de­bate at the Jern­ing­ham Street Cham­ber on Thurs­day night, Pitt said an in­door fa­cil­i­ty was one of the things he want­ed to achieve dur­ing his tenure but he said that due to cir­cum­stances be­yond his con­trol it nev­er got off the ground.

“When I took of­fice, or when I as­sumed of­fice as Sec­re­tary of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, one of my pro­nounce­ments was that with­in my term of of­fice we would have an in­door fa­cil­i­ty in To­ba­go and if we did not, I would no longer seek a third term in of­fice and was will­ing to step down. Re­gret­tably, we have now start­ed the project,” he said.

The con­tract for the project is sched­uled to be award­ed in Ju­ly, while con­struc­tion should start in Au­gust 2020.

Pitt said hav­ing been in of­fice for eight years, he felt it was the right de­ci­sion be­cause he was a man of his word.

“Against that back­drop, I would like to make an an­nounce­ment per se, that I would not be seek­ing a third term. I gave a com­mit­ment and I gave my word that if I wasn’t able to achieve a par­tic­u­lar goal, I would no longer seek re-elec­tion. So hav­ing said that, I would like to thank every­body who sup­port­ed me in my two terms and I would al­so like to thank those who were against me be­cause in­di­rect­ly they pro­vid­ed me with an in­cen­tive to prove them wrong,” he said.

The To­ba­go Aquat­ic and In­door Sport­ing Com­plex will be con­struct­ed at Ba­co­let, To­ba­go at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $250 mil­lion. It is ex­pect­ed to be a three-court fa­cil­i­ty, which would be used for in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. (CTF)