Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM, An­cil Den­nis, be­lieves a leaked record­ing—al­leged­ly fea­tur­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and UNC Po­lit­i­cal Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar—con­firms his long-held sus­pi­cion that there was a de­lib­er­ate plot to de­stroy To­ba­go’s con­struc­tion sec­tor.

A plot, he claims, that was ul­ti­mate­ly suc­cess­ful.

Speak­ing dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Cas­tara on Tues­day night, Den­nis de­scribed the au­dio as a nine-minute clip of Au­gus­tine “snitch­ing and rot­ting out” a To­ba­go busi­ness­man to the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Ac­cord­ing to Den­nis, the most trou­bling part of the al­leged con­ver­sa­tion is Au­gus­tine’s re­port to Per­sad-Bisses­sar about a busi­ness­man’s as­pi­ra­tion to be­come the biggest black con­trac­tor in the coun­try.

“Be­cause the first part of that record­ing con­cerns me great­ly. There you had the Chief Sec­re­tary re­port­ing—snitch­ing and rot­ting out—a fel­low To­bag­on­ian busi­ness­man for dream­ing to be the biggest black con­trac­tor in the coun­try. What’s wrong with that? Every black man should have that as­pi­ra­tion. And there he was, re­port­ing that to Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Den­nis claims what fol­lowed was no co­in­ci­dence.

“And I’m say­ing to you, af­ter that re­port, there was a plan. And un­for­tu­nate­ly, the plan was ex­e­cut­ed. Over the last three years, we’ve 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.”

He said these con­trac­tors have been left un­paid since 2020 and 2021.

“Not one project bank run­ning them down for their mon­ey. THA ow­ing since 2020 and 2021—not a dol­lar paid. And I’m telling you, peo­ple of To­ba­go, that this was de­lib­er­ate. An in­ten­tion­al move to de­stroy the very con­trac­tors the PNM built up over many, many years.”

Den­nis cred­it­ed the PNM for de­vel­op­ing To­ba­go’s con­struc­tion sec­tor—small, medi­um, and large con­trac­tors alike—but said things changed un­der Au­gus­tine’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Since these crooks and sell­outs came in­to of­fice, there hasn’t been one agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads pro­gram. And some of you might say you’re see­ing roads be­ing built in Bel­mont Road and oth­er places—but those are the same projects award­ed when I was Chief Sec­re­tary.”

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

“These wicked id­iots came in and stopped every sin­gle project. Had the con­trac­tors wait­ing two years—talk­ing about au­dits. Two years! And no au­dit ever came.”

Den­nis claimed the “plot to sab­o­tage” dev­as­tat­ed small con­trac­tors.

“You’re a small con­trac­tor. The project val­ued at $300,000 to $700,000. You stop that for two years and then call back the con­trac­tor—what prof­it can they make af­ter two years? They buss. Could bare­ly fin­ish the work.”

He list­ed ma­jor road projects and main­te­nance works he said are now be­ing han­dled by Trinidad-based con­trac­tors.

“Sev­en­ty-mil­lion road in Friend­ship to the air­port—con­trac­tor from Trinidad. Dutch Fort road—$19 mil­lion—same con­trac­tor. Ar­gyle, Lam­my Road—Trinidad con­trac­tor. Pi­geon Point roof­ing—con­trac­tor from Trinidad. Even the school re­pair pro­gram, once ful­ly To­ba­go-run un­der the PNM, now part­ly sold out to Trinidad.”

Den­nis in­sists the record­ing is au­then­tic, say­ing it was leaked by a To­bag­on­ian, and that it sym­bol­izes be­tray­al.

“When you lis­ten to that record­ing, you’ll hear plates knock­ing, knives and forks. I don’t know if they were eat­ing steak, ham, lamb, jam—or roti. But that’s where the sell­out of To­ba­go hap­pened.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard that nine-minute clip of the same Chief Sec­re­tary who claimed he nev­er met with the UNC, nev­er had deal­ings with them—who said they’d stand alone, win alone, and lose alone.”

“That same Chief Sec­re­tary is now caught on tape, in a meet­ing with the leader of the UNC.”

Den­nis said the is­sue is not about po­lit­i­cal al­liances but about se­cre­cy and, more im­por­tant­ly, be­tray­al.

“I have no is­sue if you want to join the UNC. Ash­worth Jack did it in 2010—he won one elec­tion and lost the next. That’s your choice. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties can align how­ev­er they want.”

“So I don’t have a prob­lem with them join­ing the UNC. What I have a prob­lem with is hid­ing the re­la­tion­ship with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. And worse than the ly­ing—is the sell­out.”

Both Au­gus­tine and Per­sad-Bisses­sar have since dis­missed the record­ing as “fool­ish­ness” and “fake news.”