Loyse Vin­cent

Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Kelvin Charles is call­ing on the par­ty’s faith­ful to re-elect him as the leader.

Charles made the call last Sun­day (Jan­u­ary 5) when he of­fi­cial­ly launched his cam­paign with a cook­ing com­pe­ti­tion at the Black Rock Hard Court.

As the in­cum­bent Charles urged par­ty mem­bers to “stay on track,” ad­vis­ing them that they should not change a vi­sion in mid­stream as his team has just be­gun to work.

Charles is run­ning against three oth­er can­di­dates in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions card­ed to be held on Jan­u­ary 19.

Charles list­ed his ac­com­plish­ments dur­ing his three years in of­fice, telling PN­Mites a vote for an­oth­er leader will di­vert the is­land from its cur­rent path of de­vel­op­ment.

He said he had kept his promis­es to de­vel­op the is­land since as­sum­ing of­fice in 2016.

Charles said he promised to build “tourism, agri­cul­ture, light man­u­fac­tur­ing on the pil­lars of a ro­bust ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, a dy­nam­ic health sec­tor, a re­formed pub­lic ser­vice, and a pro­duc­tive but hos­pitable peo­ple.”

Un­der his lead­er­ship Charles said tourism ar­rivals in­creased, in ad­di­tion he said dis­cus­sions are un­der­way to have the Ap­ple Leisure group man­age the Mag­dale­na Grand Ho­tel and Golf Re­sort, and the Sun­wing brand, which is al­ready in To­ba­go, will al­so re­fur­bish the Starfish Ho­tel.

Al­though his ad­min­is­tra­tion is “treat­ing with some is­sues” in the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness, and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment, Charles said sev­er­al ad­vance­ments have been made. He said if he is re­turned to of­fice, To­ba­go would have a med­ical school in April of this year.

Charles al­so promised ma­jor de­vel­op­ments in agri­cul­ture.

He said, “in the not too dis­tant fu­ture (To­ba­go) will be ex­port­ing paw-paw to North Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, and Trinidad.”

This was pos­si­ble, he said, be­cause the women at­tached to the URP (Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gram) plant­ed over 100 paw-paw trees.

He quipped that his long-stand­ing record of per­for­mance with the PNM makes him most suit­ed for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion.

“I be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with pol­i­tics al­most 43 years ago. I ask you who among them can boast of that lev­el of sup­port for the par­ty?” Charles asked.

Charles is field­ing a full slate of can­di­dates to fill all 17 po­si­tions that will be up for grabs in the Jan­u­ary 19th elec­tion..