Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke says he will on­ly sup­port San­dals Re­sorts in To­ba­go if the com­pa­ny in­vests its own mon­ey in build­ing the ho­tel and guar­an­tees high-lev­el jobs for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

As a fi­nal act for To­ba­go be­fore step­ping down, out­go­ing-Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal on Sat­ur­day, his on­ly re­gret was not se­cur­ing a San­dals Re­sort for the is­land and hopes to as­sist with do­ing so.

Row­ley then re­vealed that he had per­son­al­ly reached out to the San­dals own­er with a plea to take an­oth­er look at the is­land.

Re­spond­ing to Row­ley’s call for him and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to help se­cure a To­ba­go San­dals deal, Duke made it clear that his stance has nev­er been against San­dals it­self but against the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the project.

“I have no prob­lem with San­dals (Re­sort). I was nev­er against San­dals. I was against the method­ol­o­gy used to build San­dals, and I will al­ways be against that method­ol­o­gy where the gov­ern­ment fi­nances and builds every­thing and then asks San­dals to come and op­er­ate it, and then put our peo­ple as wait­er boys and wait­er girls,” Duke said.

Duke, who had pre­vi­ous­ly lob­bied heav­i­ly against the project and lat­er promised to bring San­dals to To­ba­go when his par­ty took of­fice in 2021, in­sist­ed that de­vel­op­ment must pri­ori­tise To­bag­o­ni­ans’ eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment.

“We don’t want to build a na­tion of wait­er boys. We want to build a niche of for­ward-think­ing peo­ple, peo­ple who are prime min­is­ter ma­te­r­i­al, peo­ple who are lead­er­ship ma­te­r­i­al, and peo­ple who can take To­ba­go to the next lev­el.”

He added that any agree­ment must en­sure that To­bag­o­ni­ans are trained for top po­si­tions with­in the re­sort.

“Un­til I see our peo­ple tak­ing the high jobs in San­dals and com­mand­ing the econ­o­my, I will be con­tin­u­ous in my de­mand for To­bag­o­ni­ans to com­mand the heights of our econ­o­my and be the lead­ers, not the tail bear­ers. I’m to­tal­ly against that.”

Duke al­so said he is open to dis­cus­sions with San­dals own­er Adam Stew­art and Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young but stressed that any part­ner­ship must be on terms that ben­e­fit To­ba­go.

“Of course, I will speak to Adam Stew­art and po­ten­tial Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young—all of them—for the peo­ple of To­ba­go. We are all for de­vel­op­ment, but de­vel­op­ment must be on terms that ben­e­fit the peo­ple of To­ba­go and see the rise of To­ba­go, not where To­bag­o­ni­ans are hold­ing up the low end of em­ploy­ment as wa­ter fetch­ers. We don’t want those work for peo­ple.”

Duke made it clear that if San­dals was will­ing to in­vest its own mon­ey in build­ing the re­sort, he would sup­port the project.

“If San­dals comes and spends their mon­ey and builds their ho­tel, I’m all for it. If they are do­ing as they did in St Vin­cent—build­ing their ho­tel—I’m to­tal­ly for it,” Duke said.