Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

IDA Po­lit­i­cal Leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus is call­ing on To­bag­o­ni­ans to not let the al­leged sec­ond “au­dio­gate” record­ing in­volv­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fade away and die a nat­ur­al death—es­pe­cial­ly since Au­gus­tine has not clear­ly de­nied that the meet­ing and con­ver­sa­tion ever took place.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said con­tro­ver­sies of leaked record­ings now seemed to de­fine the Far­ley-led TPP ad­min­is­tra­tion, point­ing out that the first au­dio leak still re­mains un­re­solved and now a sec­ond record­ing has sur­faced.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus made it clear that while the TPP had the right to align with a na­tion­al par­ty, To­bag­o­ni­ans de­served hon­esty.

She said, “If this last record­ing has been ver­i­fied by ex­perts as au­then­tic and not AI-gen­er­at­ed, then the IDA has se­ri­ous con­cerns about the shame­ful ap­proach to gov­er­nance. One that ap­pears to fool the pub­lic in­to giv­ing their votes on­ly for those votes to be trad­ed in se­cret deals be­hind closed doors.”

She said if this lat­est record­ing is con­firmed, To­ba­go has every right to be deeply con­cerned.

“Let’s be clear: if the TPP choos­es to part­ner with a na­tion­al par­ty, that is their pre­rog­a­tive. But the peo­ple of To­ba­go de­serve hon­esty. They de­serve trans­paren­cy, not back­ground deal­ings, not au­dio leaks, and cer­tain­ly not de­cep­tion dressed up as lead­er­ship,” she said.

She added, “Lies and ma­nip­u­la­tion have been tol­er­at­ed in the pol­i­tics of the past, and peo­ple had re­al­ly hoped that the TPP would have brought a new ap­proach. But clear­ly it is more of the same.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said cit­i­zens must de­mand bet­ter if To­ba­go is se­ri­ous about progress.

“If they fool you now to get your vote, they will con­tin­ue to fool you for the rest of the term,” she warned.

She said the IDA re­mains the on­ly To­ba­go-based par­ty not trad­ing seats for cab­i­net po­si­tions.

“This is why the IDA re­mains clear and un­wa­ver­ing as the on­ly To­ba­go-based po­lit­i­cal par­ty that is not trad­ing seats for cab­i­net po­si­tions. Our two rep­re­sen­ta­tives will re­main un­fet­tered, un­com­pro­mised and un­bi­ased, fo­cused sole­ly on ad­vanc­ing the To­ba­go agen­da,” she said.

She said To­ba­go needs “a pol­i­tics of prin­ci­ple, not whis­per­ing in the dark.”

“Peo­ple must know what they are vot­ing for and have a choice. To­ba­go de­serves a clean slate.”

“This is why we tell To­ba­go the IDA is your on­ly choice in this elec­tion to turn the tricks of pol­i­tics in­to trust, trans­paren­cy, and true To­ba­go-first lead­er­ship.”

In the al­leged record­ing, re­leased on so­cial me­dia last week­end, a woman be­lieved to be Per­sad-Bisses­sar is heard ref­er­enc­ing mon­ey sent to sup­port the TPP for elec­tion cam­paign help.

A man said to be Au­gus­tine ini­tial­ly de­nies knowl­edge, then lat­er ref­er­ences a fig­ure of $100,000 re­ceived.

The TPP has not con­firmed or de­nied the au­then­tic­i­ty of the record­ing or the meet­ing. How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine called it “fool­ish­ness”, say­ing he would not waste time re­spond­ing to at­tempts to link his par­ty to the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so dis­missed it as “fake news.” She said the meet­ing or dis­cus­sion nev­er hap­pened.

This new al­leged leak comes al­most two years af­ter a pre­vi­ous 2023 au­dio scan­dal in which Au­gus­tine was heard dis­cussing the use of pub­lic funds to al­leged­ly pro­mote po­lit­i­cal mes­sag­ing. That record­ing was ini­tial­ly dis­missed by some as AI-gen­er­at­ed—un­til Au­gus­tine lat­er ad­mit­ted the voice was his.

Last week, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke warned To­bag­o­ni­ans not to be fooled again by claims of AI fab­ri­ca­tion, dis­tanc­ing him­self from the al­leged meet­ing and say­ing he was not in­volved.