Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley bumped el­bows with and spoke to new To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke while con­grat­u­lat­ing them af­ter their ap­point­ments yes­ter­day.

When Duke was sworn in as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, he re­peat­ed the pre­scribed oath to “bear true faith and al­le­giance to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

But ear­li­er in the morn­ing when he was sworn in as a THA As­sem­bly­man, he’d changed the word­ing of the oath to say, “bear true faith and al­le­giance to To­ba­go and Trinidad.”

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes ad­min­is­tered the oath of of­fice to the new THA mem­bers, wit­nessed by Row­ley and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.

This fol­lowed Mon­day’s 14-1 land­slide vic­to­ry by Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) over the To­ba­go unit of Row­ley’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine was not present at the func­tion.

Row­ley wore a blue suit with touch­es of PNM’s sig­na­ture red in his shirt, tie and socks. Duke and oth­er PDP mem­bers wore touch­es of the PDP’s sig­na­ture green with their shirts or ties.

At the first leg of yes­ter­day’s event at the Mag­dale­na Grand ho­tel, the oath of of­fice was ad­min­is­tered to all 14 PDP mem­bers start­ing with Au­gus­tine.

The PNM’s lone rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kelvon Mor­ris (Dar­ryl Spring/Whim) was sworn in al­so.

Mor­ris, as well as Au­gus­tine and the 12 oth­er PDP can­di­dates, swore to “bear true faith and al­le­giance to Trinidad and To­ba­go, to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law and con­sci­en­tious­ly and im­par­tial­ly dis­charge the du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties” of an As­sem­bly­man.

On com­ple­tion of their oaths of of­fice, Pres­i­dent Weekes, in a brief ad­dress to the gath­er­ing, said the mem­bers were lim­it­ed to one guest due to COVID re­stric­tions.

Weekes added, “I hope the lim­it­ed num­ber in no way de­tracts from what should be the joy and awe of the un­der­tak­ing of what you en­tered this morn­ing.

“The work has now start­ed. You have a long and per­haps ar­du­ous road ahead. May all your en­deav­ours meet with suc­cess and I wish you well.”

In the sec­ond part of the func­tion at the THA leg­is­la­ture build­ing, de­feat­ed PDP Dar­ryl Spring/Whim can­di­date Ab­by Tay­lor was elect­ed As­sem­bly Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

Suc­cess­ful can­di­date Joel Samp­son (Bon Ac­cord/Crown Point) was elect­ed deputy Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

With pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers in place, Duke then nom­i­nat­ed Au­gus­tine as Chief Sec­re­tary.

Au­gus­tine took the oath of of­fice for that post and was con­grat­u­lat­ed by Weekes, Row­ley and Archie, who all spoke briefly to him. Au­gus­tine gave Row­ley a brief pat on the back af­ter a bounce of el­bows.

Au­gus­tine then nom­i­nat­ed Duke for the post of deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

Duke was sim­i­lar­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed by Weekes, Row­ley and Archie, who spoke to him al­so.

Mor­ris, who was sworn in as THA Mi­nor­i­ty leader, was con­grat­u­lat­ed by all three al­so.

The PDP’s coun­cil­lors who were sworn in­to of­fice were Tashia Bor­ris and Or­lan­do Kerr.

The third coun­cil­lor, Cer­ti­ca Orr, will be sworn in to­day.

The PNM’s coun­cil­lor, who al­so took the oath of of­fice, was Petal Daniel-Benoit.

This morn­ing, Row­ley and Archie are al­so sched­uled to be present at a func­tion where new THA Sec­re­taries and As­sis­tant Sec­re­taries will as­sume the 10 THA port­fo­lios. Weekes will ad­dress the gath­er­ing at 10 am.

PDP of­fi­cials said Wednes­day Duke will not be get­ting the Fi­nance and Econ­o­my port­fo­lio and Au­gus­tine might be ap­point­ed to that post. —Gail Alexan­der