Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day toured the new­ly built Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion and the con­struc­tion site of the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, say­ing he was “very sat­is­fied” with the de­vel­op­ment thrust in the east­ern part of To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing the tour, the prime min­is­ter said the vil­lage of Rox­bor­ough is be­ing once again con­vert­ed as the sec­ond town on the is­land.

He said that in years gone by, Rox­bor­ough was a thriv­ing cen­tre but due to fund­ing is­sues the com­mu­ni­ty fell on hard times.

He told re­porters that he was pleased that his Gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­tized the projects as part of their na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.

“So now any­where you stand in this lo­ca­tion, you can see the new Rox­bor­ough. We have the new Ad­min­is­tra­tive Cen­tre (sic) in op­er­a­tion, built and op­er­a­tionalised, where all the pub­lic ser­vice agen­cies are lo­cat­ed and ser­vic­ing. We built a new po­lice sta­tion which - I was here re­cent­ly - which we opened that is now next door, and by the end of this year, this hos­pi­tal is ex­pect­ed to be com­mis­sioned and ready for ser­vice,” he said.

The prime min­is­ter added that the Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion was 96 per cent com­plete, while the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, which is ex­pect­ed to be a full-ser­vice hos­pi­tal with mod­ern equip­ment, should be com­plet­ed by the end of 2020.

He said, al­though the loans are yet to be paid, he was pleased with the out­comes.

“Cause these fa­cil­i­ties are not cheap. When we take a de­ci­sion to do one of these things, it’s a ma­jor com­mit­ment, be­cause the Gov­ern­ment is re­al­ly a cus­to­di­an of pub­lic as­sets and this is a $100 mil­lion com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of east­ern To­ba­go. It’s done very well. I was al­so very pleased to see the amount of lo­cal peo­ple who were in­volved in the con­struc­tion,” he said.

A man walks past the Roxborough Hospital which is currently under construction.

Ques­tioned on if he felt enough was done for To­ba­go East can­di­date Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy to be re­tained in of­fice, he said both rep­re­sen­ta­tives per­formed well.

“I’ve had the plea­sure of work­ing with and mould­ing a num­ber of young peo­ple in this Gov­ern­ment and I am very pleased in the way they have turned out and the two To­ba­go MPs, To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West, they have dis­tin­guished them­selves in tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple in their dis­trict and they have a lot to show for it,” he said.

Sham­fa Cud­joe is the re­turn­ing can­di­date for To­ba­go West.

Dr Row­ley said, Rox­bor­ough is cur­rent­ly miss­ing a few in­fra­struc­tur­al el­e­ments, so fo­cus will now be placed on the agri­cul­tur­al, fish­ing, tourism and cul­tur­al sec­tors.

No Mon­ey Of­fer

Mean­while, in a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley said he takes pride in the fact that he has nev­er been of­fered mon­ey to switch al­le­giances.

“Since I have come out pub­licly as a PNM voice, in all the suc­cess­es as well as tri­als and tribu­la­tions that came my way, even in my worst times, I pride my­self that NO PER­SON HAS EVER OF­FERED ME MON­EY, to change my al­le­giance. I pride my­self in that,” the post said.

He added: “I be­lieve it is be­cause they know that such an of­fer will be viewed by me as an in­sult. They all know that I am not PNM on­ly in fair weath­er. They know that I am PNM in a storm or hur­ri­cane!

That is why I can point to so many years of Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion in my CV, in ser­vice to THE PEO­PLE of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

I’m PNM and PROUD and with good rea­sons so to be. That’s just the way it is and I will rec­om­mend it to all my broth­ers and sis­ters.”