ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A con­fi­dent Petal-Ann Roberts says she is op­ti­mistic and ready to man­age To­ba­go’s fi­nances in a way that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost its econ­o­my af­ter.

She made the com­ment af­ter she was sworn in as the first fe­male Fi­nance, Trade and Econ­o­my Sec­re­tary yes­ter­day.

Roberts said it was an ho­n­our to hold the of­fice.

“I feel hum­bled. I am very over­whelmed with emo­tions be­cause this op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve is para­mount par­tic­u­lar­ly in my ca­reer, in life. I didn’t know this is where my path would be in life,” she told re­porters.

Al­though she was on­ly sworn in yes­ter­day at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, Roberts has been ac­quaint­ing her­self with the of­fice she now holds and al­ready has a clear strat­e­gy for the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment.

She said, “About two weeks ago, I had a meet­ing with the sec­re­taries to de­ter­mine where the pri­or­i­ty lies of the as­sem­bly ... the Chief Sec­re­tary was the Fi­nance Sec­re­tary at the time and shared the pri­or­i­ties of the as­sem­bly. Those are the pri­or­i­ties I will be treat­ing with.”

Roberts said her de­sire to serve her home­land and its peo­ple mo­ti­vat­ed her to take the leap in­to pub­lic life.

“To­ba­go de­serves this, par­tic­u­lar­ly at this time and sea­son. With the back­ground that I have in the THA for 15 years and my ex­ten­sive in­sti­tu­tion­al knowl­edge, the cul­ture of To­ba­go, I am fa­mil­iar with the peo­ple and they know me. I think this time was the op­por­tune time. That is why I ac­cept­ed,” she ex­plained.

But first on her agen­da is as­sess­ing and man­ag­ing the debts in­curred from the oil spill off the Cove.

“I would like to en­sure that the oil spill ex­pen­di­ture and pay­ments are man­aged as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and the funds are al­lo­cat­ed ac­cord­ing­ly,” she said.

Roberts re­places Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine as Fi­nance Sec­re­tary. Au­gus­tine had held the post since 2021. With her ex­pe­ri­ence in man­age­ment ac­count­ing and fi­nan­cial analy­sis, Roberts promised to bring a new style to gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

But the day was not on­ly a mem­o­rable one for Roberts. Her son Amarie wit­nessed the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny. Roberts’ son got his SEA re­sults yes­ter­day and was among the top ten per­form­ers in To­ba­go—plac­ing sixth. His moth­er did not di­vulge his school.

“I feel so emo­tion­al,” she said.

While Roberts cel­e­brates as­sum­ing the role of a ma­jor port­fo­lio, Au­gus­tine is al­so now cel­e­brat­ing hav­ing more time on his hands to push the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my dri­ve.

Au­gus­tine said, “I think my wife will be hap­py there is one less item on my list and my young daugh­ter will see dad­dy more. The po­si­tion of Fi­nance has quite a lot of pa­per­work.”

He said he was com­fort­able pass­ing on the ba­ton to Roberts.