Gail Alexan­der

Take the po­lit­i­cal “heads” off the PNM in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions as they’re on­ly for friends and fi­nanciers—“giv­ing away” 12 acres of prime To­ba­go land to “friends” for ex­per­i­men­tal straw­ber­ry cul­ti­va­tion.

That’s the call—fig­u­ra­tive­ly– and claim from Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke at PDP’s cam­paign meet­ing on Wednes­day.

This was to­wards the De­cem­ber 6 THA polls. PDP’s theme is Leh We Fix Dis.

Duke ac­cused the PNM of be­ing for friends and fi­nanciers and “giv­ing away” prime To­ba­go land in­clud­ing Rocky Bay and oth­er places.

He said the PDP par­ty is on­ly four years but is now “neck to neck” with PNM.

He said, “We have to take the po­lit­i­cal necks off of our po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents be­cause they’re sense­less. If some­thing has a head and it’s serv­ing no pur­pose , take the head off! It’s sense­less.”

He added: “Who would give away 12 acres of prime re­al es­tate land for an ex­per­i­men­tal fruit? Straw­ber­ries! Twelve acres of prime land! Good ac­cess and ex­it right in the most pop­u­lat­ed place in To­ba­go which was de­signed for in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment !”

“And we just ig­nore all of that and give one of your friends in Trinidad 12 acres– they are sense­less!”

Duke claimed PNM want­ed to “give away all the lands in To­ba­go to their friends.

He re­count­ed land pur­chase is­sues of years ago in­clud­ing 2006.

He said in some cas­es lands were bought from own­ers by the PNM led THA and un­der the PNM lands were tak­en away and “giv­en to their friends.”

He al­so not­ed oth­er lands which he said PNM’s friends had bought for $22mil­lion and sold for $106 mil­lion to the PNM THA then lat­er re­port­ed vul­gar prof­its of $650mil­lion. “ They made $83mil­lion prof­it on those lands, while we ketch­ing we you-know-what,” Duke claimed

“It’s the same group in Trinidad they giv­ing the 12 acres of prime To­ba­go land to. How many To­bag­o­ni­ans are giv­en prime land for agri­cul­ture or in­dus­tri­al work??? They spent over $1bil­lion of your mon­ey to ac­quire 34 es­tates amount­ing to 12, 000 acres . On those lands they not even plant­i­ng buck buck or ripe fig – they sim­ply giv­ing it away. They are sense­less!”

“They al­so gone across to Grafton side– 28 acres beau­ti­ful land and beach­es… Back Bay and Rocky Bay for div­ing, where tur­tles lay eggs undis­turbed– our sense­less col­leagues give 28 acres to their friends in Trinidad,” he al­so claimed.

Duke added, “I al­so warn you about their friends here in To­ba­go too. They left prime state land in Ba­co­let land went and buy land from their friends to put up school– this is who the PNM are!”

“But we have a land plan where all To­bag­o­ni­ans will have ac­cess to land at re­duced cost, we will take pub­lic lands and de­vel­op it in­to plots,” he said, adding this would be done in a way to en­sure To­bag­o­ni­ans get some of the 12 acres PNM “wants to give away.’

Duke added : “All you re­mem­ber the Sou Sou Land project ? It was a sou sou…”

PDP deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine said there was a “con­trac­tu­al oli­garchy” where a few were get­ting every­thing .

He claimed there were in­stances of roads be­ing cre­at­ed to nowhere and a for­mer of­fi­cial built a road above Good­wood – “No farm­ers or plant­i­ng, but when you check his an­ces­tral lands up there.”

He said it wasn’t pos­si­ble for To­ba­go to be­come the bread­bas­ket of T&T as it didn’t have the land, peo­ple and economies to dri­ve that as oth­er places do. But he said To­ba­go has some agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce with com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage, ‘’And we need to dou­ble down and do the work.”

Au­gus­tine said there’s a mar­ket for goat’s milk. But he added his goat farm is spare com­pared to that of “my good friend in Ma­son Hall.”

Au­gus­tine said, “Why are To­ba­go prod­ucts not in PriceS­mart where there’s straw­ber­ries and ap­ples. But we have pom­me­cythere and man­goes rot­ting on the ground. We need to chan­nel what we’re not us­ing to the Trinidad mar­ket, giv­ing them healthy foods.”

“Why are Trinida­di­ans buy­ing salt fish– Cana­di­an cod– when our dried fish is bet­ter. We have a mar­ket in Trinidad with over 1 mil­lion peo­ple where we don’t re­quire a visa to go to and where busi­ness can be set up fast. Why is trade on­ly com­ing in our di­rec­tion and not go­ing in (Trinidad’s) di­rec­tion?”

“Sup­pose some­thing cat­a­stroph­ic hap­pen in Trinidad . So we must have food se­cu­ri­ty to stand on our own.”

He said that is­sue must al­so con­front the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion where con­trac­tors com­plain about agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads and roads were built for years but no sign of de­liv­er­ables from them.

“We build­ing these roads and fa­cil­i­tat­ing friends and fam­i­ly– not all of To­ba­go,” he al­so said.

Au­gus­tine said all PDP mem­bers – in­clud­ing Duke – were sub­ject to a so­cial com­pact all mem­bers signed.

He said he knew Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley’s re­cent re­mark about “imps, and chimps” couldn’t have re­ferred to To­bag­o­ni­ans be­cause they didn’t “take ma­te­r­i­al to build their own house” and had “young girl” mak­ing ac­cu­sa­tions against them.

Au­gus­tine, who called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to vote, added PDP couldn’t be com­pla­cent.

“We ent win yet –not til the fat la­dy sings! Peo­ple al­ways stop­ping me all over the place to com­plain about things, but don’t com­plain and stay home- do some­thing about it. God will pun­ish you se­vere­ly if you al­low this this (be­ing “laid back lazy”) to hap­pen.”

Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill can­di­date Nigel Taitt– who is con­test­ing against PNM’s Tracey David­son –Ce­les­tine, said T&T needs a change, bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion and to be prop­er­ly de­vel­oped.