Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Since 2020, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Diego Mar­tin West, Hans Des Vi­gnes, has had po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions. How­ev­er, at that time he felt un­pre­pared.

Des Vi­gnes, a fa­mil­iar face in the me­dia in­dus­try, said his tran­si­tion in­to pol­i­tics was a nat­ur­al step dri­ven by a de­sire to serve.

“This feels in a big way about pur­pose. Over the years, I felt deep in­side of me that there was some­thing more that I could do—there was that de­sire to serve na­tion­al­ly,” he said on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day.

Not­ing that his jour­ney in­to pol­i­tics was not an overnight de­ci­sion, he re­vealed: “At one point, I felt I wasn’t ready. So, what did I do dur­ing that time? Al­though I had AC­CA, an ac­count­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion, I took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther equip my­self. I at­tained my MBA, served on the Com­mu­ni­ty Re­cov­ery Com­mit­tee, be­came a di­rec­tor at iGovTT, and was lat­er called to serve on the IDB Next Gen Board.

“All of these ex­pe­ri­ences pre­pared me for this mo­ment—to step for­ward as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple of Diego Mar­tin West. My years in me­dia and en­ter­tain­ment have al­so giv­en me a unique skill set that I bring to this role.”

Des Vi­gnes has been on the cam­paign trail for the past few weeks, en­gag­ing with con­stituents to un­der­stand their needs and chal­lenges.

Like all con­stituen­cies, Diego Mar­tin West’s res­i­dents want a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, which he be­lieves can be achieved through col­lab­o­ra­tions be­tween busi­ness­es and the com­mu­ni­ty.

“For in­stance, I was able to se­cure spon­sor­ship for a bas­ket­ball ring at Covi­gne Road Bas­ket­ball Court through one of my pre­vi­ous em­ploy­ers. These pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ships are es­sen­tial in mov­ing Diego Mar­tin West for­ward,” he ex­plained.

On the is­sue of wa­ter sup­ply, Des Vi­gnes high­light­ed the ef­forts of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), which has com­plet­ed over 200 projects in the last five years.

“The so­lu­tions to many of our prob­lems are al­ready in play. It’s about en­sur­ing they reach the peo­ple ef­fec­tive­ly,” he said.

Step­ping in­to a con­stituen­cy once held by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is no small feat, and Des Vi­gnes ac­knowl­edged the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Dr Row­ley has left a lega­cy—over 30 years of ser­vice, road in­fra­struc­ture, parks, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, and health fa­cil­i­ties. The foun­da­tion is there, and now it’s for us to con­tin­ue build­ing on it.”

He added: “Peo­ple say big shoes to fill, but Dr Row­ley walks in two shoes. In Diego Mar­tin West, there are 50,000 peo­ple—that’s 100,000 shoes to walk in. That’s what rep­re­sen­ta­tion is about.”

Des Vi­gnes em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of be­ing ac­ces­si­ble and en­gaged with his con­stituents.

“Two things peo­ple need a lot at this time are in­for­ma­tion and in­spi­ra­tion. I take ex­am­ple from some­one like Bri­an Man­ning, who walks San Fer­nan­do East week­ly. I want to do the same—spend at least one day a week with­in the con­stituen­cy, lis­ten­ing, en­gag­ing, and work­ing on so­lu­tions to­geth­er,” he said.