SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

As the count­down to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions on De­cem­ber 6 con­tin­ues, To­bag­o­ni­ans are be­com­ing more vo­cal about the needs of their com­mu­ni­ties.

In the new­ly-cre­at­ed dis­trict of Daryl Spring/Whim, St John Adams lament­ed the ‘back­ward’ con­di­tion of his com­mu­ni­ty.

“This com­mu­ni­ty, we need the roads fin­ish fix, we need lights, we want some more jobs in the com­mu­ni­ty, the place want to be more up to date,” Adams told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a vis­it.

Daryl Spring/Whim is one of three new dis­tricts in To­ba­go, along with Mt St George/Good­wood and Lam­beau/Low­lands.

Mon­day will be the sec­ond time this year that To­bag­o­ni­ans will be head­ing to the polls, af­ter the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tion end­ed in a 6-6 dead­lock be­tween the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP). The tie forced the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion to cre­ate the three new dis­tricts to avoid an­oth­er dead­lock.

Adams, 66, said with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic bring­ing the tourism sec­tor to a halt, he wants to see a greater fo­cus on agri­cul­ture. He said with most of To­ba­go’s sup­plies com­ing from Trinidad, life has be­come too ex­pen­sive.

“You can’t sur­vive on tourism any­more. We need to come back to ba­sics, plant your crops, get your fowl and mind it, but every­body’s mind­set is for the gro­cery, every­body hands is off from do­ing some­thing...we need a lit­tle push be­cause every­thing com­ing from Trinidad and it so ex­pen­sive.”

Adams sug­gest­ed open­ing farm­ing pro­grammes in com­mu­ni­ties to pro­vide em­ploy­ment and food for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“They could open a pro­gramme, go in­to vil­lages and open a pro­gramme like what (ANR) Robin­son used to do, in­stead of plant­i­ng flow­ers on the side of the road, do farm­ing, you put out the mon­ey and let the peo­ple do the farm­ing and then you take the crop and sell it. That is some­thing that will push To­ba­go, every vil­lage, you get­ting to eat and you get­ting to push out,” Adams said.

He said with its high un­em­ploy­ment rate, To­bag­o­ni­ans do not need hand­outs but a strong foun­da­tion to build on.

How­ev­er, Adams said he does not see the po­ten­tial to fix the is­land’s is­sues from any of the par­ties con­test­ing the elec­tion.

“They not putting it out, they com­ing around but they not putting it out, be­cause it have plen­ty vil­lage in this To­ba­go where you could nat­u­ral­ly go and see peo­ple ask­ing... a lil $500, this and that, that can’t sus­tain peo­ple. You need a foun­da­tion where they could stand up and oth­ers could come and start to build on it,” he said.

A short dis­tance away, De­von Isles lament­ed the lack of jobs for young peo­ple. Isles said he is hop­ing to see a tech­ni­cal school opened to train young­sters so they can be­come self-em­ployed.He said he sees one par­ty who can fix this is­sue.

“I say PDP be­cause to me, PNM ent re­al­ly do­ing noth­ing much for the coun­try and I feel if we get a change, the coun­try will go much bet­ter,” Isles said.

Res­i­dent Dar­ren Mc Clatchie said he sup­ports the PNM. He agreed more needs to be done on the is­land to en­cour­age young­sters to get in­to farm­ing.

“To­ba­go has a lot of lands, a lot of waste lands and agri­cul­ture could be boost­ed up, they could pay peo­ple to do agri­cul­ture ba­si­cal­ly, al­though some peo­ple are lazy but agri­cul­ture could be a big help in To­ba­go if the peo­ple are will­ing to work.”

Mc Clatchie said he was ex­cit­ed by the up­com­ing elec­tion and is hop­ing the PNM will keep its promis­es to his com­mu­ni­ty if vic­to­ri­ous.

“I heard they talked about the in­door fa­cil­i­ty, which is long over­due too and I heard they said if we give them an­oth­er term, they will make sure to bring that to light, and I am hop­ing that they bring it to light be­cause I have been hear­ing about it over and over and it’s about time. So far, they are do­ing a very good job but there is room for im­prove­ment,” he said.

New fa­ther Le­an­dro Jack said he tries not to fo­cus on pol­i­tics be­cause it can get too tox­ic.

“I am not that much in­to pol­i­tics, I don’t find its healthy to get in­to be­cause it’s al­ways some kind of bobol thing be­tween the two par­ties back and forth and to me, they not fight­ing for the needs of the coun­try, they on­ly fight­ing for them­selves,” Jack said.

How­ev­er, he said this does not mean he does not care about which par­ty con­trols the As­sem­bly from De­cem­ber 7.

“I have my new­born son there and I want him to grow up and live prop­er­ly, to make bet­ter for him­self and to make a change to the area, so I do care.”

He too said un­em­ploy­ment was a ma­jor is­sue, not­ing there were groups of young­sters who sit on the road­side all day.

“If you dri­ve right around the cor­ner, you will see them. They over there all the time do­ing noth­ing. We re­al­ly need to do some­thing about get­ting em­ploy­ment for these youths,” Jack said.

Un­like Jack, John Vir­gil said he be­lieves it does not mat­ter which par­ty wins the elec­tion.

“I doesn’t mind be­cause it doesn’t bring good or bad for me, I have to work hard the same way and I self-em­ployed be­cause I have my own per­son­al am­bi­tion,” Vir­gil said.

He said the dis­trict needs more de­vel­op­ment and sup­port from those hop­ing to rep­re­sent its peo­ple.

“We don’t see the rep­re­sen­ta­tives, you on­ly see them for a lit­tle time and then you don’t see them again. We want a wall in the back there, and we see them once, a promise, a promise...but a promise is a com­fort to a fool.”

Jack, who owns and op­er­ates a weld­ing busi­ness, said small busi­ness­es al­so need a help­ing hand.

“My place is To­ba­go Cre­ative Weld­ing, when I say To­ba­go, I mean To­ba­go. I say see­ing as it start here and it op­er­at­ing here...we could get a lil help out. But any­where you try, is blank. They not do­ing any­thing for the small man, we have to fight up.”