Camille McEach­nie

Three To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly's (THA) Sec­re­taries Kelvin Charles, Jo­mo Pitt, and Hay­den Spencer have re­signed.

Charles, a for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary, head­ed the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion, and En­er­gy, while Spencer was the Sec­re­tary for Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry, and Fish­eries. Pitt was Sec­re­tary for Youth Af­fairs and Sports.

This fol­lows a de­ci­sion by Chief Sec­re­tary and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) Area Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Buc­coo/Mt. Pleas­ant An­cil Den­nis. .

Den­nis asked for the sec­re­taries' res­ig­na­tions as they did not of­fer them­selves up as can­di­dates in the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tions and are no longer As­sem­bly­men.

With a tie of six seats each for the PNM and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots in the THA elec­tions, no new Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil can be formed. The old one re­mains in place.

The As­sem­bly­men have not cho­sen a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer de­spite at­tempt­ing to do so on two oc­ca­sions.

With­out the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, there can be no new chief sec­re­tary and oth­er sec­re­taries and as­sis­tant sec­re­taries.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture the build­ing, Jern­ing­ham Street, Scar­bor­ough on Feb­ru­ary 1, about the sec­re­taries' res­ig­na­tion, Den­nis said the re­main­ing Sec­re­taries would han­dle the ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lios.

Asked if re­ject­ed can­di­dates, In­fra­struc­ture's Sec­re­tary- Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment's As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary -Shomari Hec­tor, would re­main in their re­spec­tive port­fo­lios, Den­nis said yes.