Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil, An­cil Den­nis, be­lieves a leaked record­ing pur­port­ed to be of a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and UNC Po­lit­i­cal Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firms his long-held sus­pi­cion of a de­lib­er­ate plot to de­stroy To­ba­go’s con­struc­tion sec­tor.

At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Tues­day night in Cas­tara, Den­nis claimed that in the nine-minute clip Au­gus­tine was “snitch­ing and rat­ting out” a To­ba­go busi­ness­man to the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

He said the most trou­bling part of the al­leged con­ver­sa­tion is Au­gus­tine’s re­port to Per­sad-Bisses­sar about a To­ba­go busi­ness­man’s dream to be­come the biggest black con­trac­tor in the coun­try.

“The first part of that record­ing con­cerns me great­ly, be­cause there you had the Chief Sec­re­tary re­port­ing, snitch­ing and rat­ting out on a fel­low To­bag­on­ian busi­ness­man about his as­pi­ra­tions to be the biggest black con­trac­tor in the coun­try.

“What’s wrong with that? Every Black man should have that as­pi­ra­tion to be the best black busi­ness­man and there he was re­port­ing that to Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar,” Den­nis said

He claims what fol­lowed that re­port was no co­in­ci­dence.

“And I’m say­ing to you that fol­low­ing that re­port there was a plan, and the plan has been ex­e­cut­ed, un­for­tu­nate­ly, be­cause over the last three years, we have seen the re­place­ment of every­thing To­ba­go in the con­struc­tion sec­tor. Warn­ers gone, Parks gone, Car En­gi­neer­ing gone. Damari gone. Who else? All of them gone.”

Den­nis said those con­trac­tors have been un­paid since 2020 and 2021.

“Not one project bank run­ning them down for their mon­ey. THA ow­ing since 2021 and 2020, not $1 to be paid. And I’m say­ing to you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, that that ac­tion was de­lib­er­ate as an in­ten­tion to de­stroy To­ba­go’s con­trac­tors who were built up by the PNM over many, many years.”

Den­nis cred­it­ed the PNM for de­vel­op­ing con­trac­tors on the is­land and en­sur­ing a sys­tem where all lev­els of the sec­tor—small, medi­um and large—could thrive. But that changed when Au­gus­tine’s ad­min­is­tra­tion came in­to pow­er, he said.

“There has not been one agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads pro­gramme and some of you might tell me that you’re see­ing roads be­ing built in Bel­mont Road and oth­er ar­eas. Those are the same projects that were award­ed when I was Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly,” he said

Den­nis said the new ad­min­is­tra­tion halt­ed all projects for two years un­der the guise of con­duct­ing au­dits—but no au­dit was ever pro­duced.

He claimed there was a “plot to sab­o­tage dev­as­tat­ed small con­trac­tors”and list­ed ma­jor road and main­te­nance projects which are now be­ing han­dled by con­trac­tors from Trinidad.

“$70 mil­lion road down in Friend­ship to go to the air­port—con­trac­tor from Trinidad. Road in Dutch Fort, $19 mil­lion—same con­trac­tor from Trinidad. Road in Ar­gyle, Lam­my Road—con­trac­tor from Trinidad. Pi­geon Point roof­ing—con­trac­tor from Trinidad.

“Even the school re­pair pro­gramme that was to­tal­ly To­ba­go un­der the PNM has now been sold out part­ly to con­trac­tors from Trinidad.”

Den­nis, who main­tains the record­ing is au­then­tic and was “leaked by a To­bag­on­ian” said it sym­bol­ised the be­tray­al of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“When you lis­ten to that record­ing, you will hear plates knock­ing and knife and fork. I don’t know if they were eat­ing steak, ham, lamb or jam or roti, but that is where the sell­out of To­ba­go took place,” he said.

He said the is­sue was not about po­lit­i­cal al­liances but the se­cre­cy and what he de­scribed as be­tray­al of To­ba­go’s lo­cal con­trac­tors.

“I have no prob­lems if you want to join the UNC. Ash­worth Jack did it in 2010—he win one elec­tion, he lose the next one bad­ly. That’s your choice. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties are free to join with who­ev­er they want. That’s a choice.

“So I do have a prob­lem with them join­ing the UNC, but why are you hid­ing un­der the ta­ble your re­la­tion­ship with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar? And I’m say­ing worse than the ly­ing is the sell­ing out,” he said.

Au­gus­tine and Per­sad-Bisses­sar have dis­missed the record­ings as “fool­ish­ness” and “fake news.”