RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine showed off his bak­ing skills while send­ing a new year's mes­sage to cit­i­zens call­ing for care­ful plan­ning, pa­tience and pre­ci­sion in han­dling is­sues of gov­er­nance. 

In a care­ful­ly craft­ed video dis­play­ing his skills, Au­gus­tine said good things take time and are of­ten worth the wait.

He said be­fore en­ter­ing pol­i­tics he spent most of his time in the con­fines of a kitchen.

"I feel my great­est pas­sion is for bak­ing which is an un­par­al­leled mas­ter class of phi­los­o­phy, one that holds wis­dom as we ap­proach the dawn of the new year," he said.

Au­gus­tine added, "A sea­soned bak­er knows there are cer­tain time-con­sum­ing as­pects of bak­ing which can­not be rushed. We know that plan­ning, pre­ci­sion and pa­tience are key in­gre­di­ents in bak­ing, even though these are not list­ed in the recipe."

Au­gus­tine said the busi­ness of gov­er­nance strikes a sim­i­lar cord and re­quires a health­i­er dosage of plan­ning, pre­ci­sion and pa­tience.

"In gov­er­nance, the stakes are high­er, and we con­tend with a num­ber of long-stand­ing is­sues which will take time to ad­dress. We re­main com­mit­ted to find­ing sus­tain­able so­lu­tions to these chal­lenges. In your own dai­ly lives, I want to en­cour­age you to ex­er­cise pa­tience as we move in­to an­oth­er year," he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so cau­tioned against mak­ing rash de­ci­sions.

"Of­ten we are guilty of cre­at­ing per­son­al res­o­lu­tions with­out giv­ing our­selves enough time for the tran­si­tion. Some call it quits be­fore the de­sired change man­i­fest. When the ul­ti­mate goal is changed then a del­i­cate bal­ance should be sought with ac­count­abil­i­ty and pa­tience."

Au­gus­tine then list­ed his 2022 achieve­ments in­clud­ing high­er re­mu­ner­a­tion for CEPEP and URP work­ers, re­con­struc­tion of Cas­tara Road in two weeks, revet­ment wall for Rox­bor­ough and con­struc­tion of King Pe­ters Bay Hill Road.

And while Au­gus­tine made no men­tion of the fall­out with his for­mer deputy chief Wat­son Duke, he said the cur­rent THA ex­ec­u­tive re­mains will­ing and ready to serve. He said in all fam­i­lies some peo­ple cause the "cake to drop" and not­ed that when this oc­curs, it is al­ways wise to re­cal­i­brate and re­fo­cus.

The video end­ed with Au­gus­tine shar­ing his per­fect­ly baked cake with his wife, Takyana Nedd, who is ex­pect­ing their first child.