Gail Alexan­der

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke has tak­en is­sue with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s meet­ings with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He ac­cused Au­gus­tine of “wa­ter­ing down” the post of Chief Sec­re­tary.

Duke, who spoke on the To­ba­go Up­dates talk show yes­ter­day, went on the of­fen­sive against Au­gus­tine and oth­er As­sem­bly mem­bers who re­cent­ly re­signed from his PDP par­ty. More peo­ple re­signed from the PDP ex­ec­u­tive on Wednes­day.

Com­ment­ing on the par­ty’s fu­ture, Duke said peo­ple have been elect­ed for posts and the PDP chair­man would make those names known at the ap­pro­pri­ate time.

He said there had been no ad­vanc­ing of To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my since Au­gus­tine aban­doned the is­sue of a team go­ing to Trinidad and solv­ing the prob­lem.

“He said he would now talk to Dr Row­ley on the mat­ter. Did To­ba­go vote for that, for him to sit and talk to Dr Row­ley?” Duke asked.

Duke al­so said that dur­ing the pan­dem­ic the PDP had planned to de­fy the re­stric­tions on beach-go­ing. He said he had rec­om­mend­ed hav­ing the is­sue de­bat­ed in the THA, a res­o­lu­tion passed and then “we all should go to the beach and take a bath.”

“You know what he (Au­gus­tine) did? He went to have a meet­ing with Dr Row­ley, then come and say to us that the Prime Min­is­ter re­laxed the hours. This is how he’s sell­ing To­ba­go short.”

The PDP leader de­scribed as “non­sense” Au­gus­tine’s claim that he was talk­ing to Caribbean Air­lines and the Prime Min­is­ter about air­lines.

“You’re wa­ter­ing down the po­si­tion of Chief Sec­re­tary,” he said. “You ought to have dig­ni­fied meet­ings that are prop­er­ly min­ut­ed with the Prime Min­is­ter, not to go by his res­i­dence in short pants and feel is a lime and thing. This ain’t no kicks thing, this ain’t no fun thing, it’s gov­er­nance.

“Every meet­ing you have with the Prime Min­is­ter ought to be prop­er­ly min­ut­ed and tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. You ought not to meet by the Prime Min­is­ter by your­self. This was a se­ri­ous meet­ing.

“Would the Prime Min­is­ter meet with an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal leader by him­self? No. Would he meet with a world leader by him­self? No. Why are you be­ing a neo­phyte, not tak­ing ad­vice?”

Duke said there had been a third meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter and a group of peo­ple in To­ba­go “say­ing they want­ed to digi­tise To­ba­go.” He said Au­gus­tine said the Prime Min­is­ter “was com­ing up to­mor­row and he asked that the THA bring four per­sons” and Au­gus­tine would de­ter­mine who the four were.

“I’m po­lit­i­cal leader and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. I say no more. No con­ver­sa­tion was had with me. I wasn’t se­lect­ed to go, the most ex­pe­ri­enced per­son who un­der­stands pub­lic ser­vice in­side out, the one that will speak to them head on is­sues.

“Who he brought with him? Neo­phytes. Noth­ing came out of that meet­ing. He brought four, the Prime Min­is­ter brought ten. You see the dif­fer­ence?”

Duke said he in­tends to ramp up the call for fresh elec­tions as the PDP couldn’t wait un­til the THA’s $2.5 bil­lion is spent. He said he would move the earth for To­bag­o­ni­ans’ de­mo­c­ra­t­ic will to be ex­er­cised. The peo­ple would de­cide Au­gus­tine’s fate, he added.

Duke said he didn’t at­tend As­sem­bly meet­ings and felt “sick be­ing around them” as he re­alised “they had their plans long time.”

De­tail­ing how he was re­proached by some As­sem­bly­men and not­ing that they didn’t get “any­thing yet,” he said one had to watch how they ac­quire their as­sets. He claimed he was warned that some peo­ple would have “mashed up the par­ty, were from NAR, and were grasshop­pers.”

He said the PDP is well poised to win seats in Trinidad and is get­ting “rave re­views” there.

“We’ll win Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion, Port-of-Spain North, Port-of-Spain South and Laven­tille East and West,” he said.