Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of try­ing to steal cred­it for the new East Ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, claim­ing they pre­vi­ous­ly tried to ob­struct the project.

In a Face­book post re­spond­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pro­mo­tion of the ter­mi­nal’s open­ing yes­ter­day, Row­ley in­sist­ed that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was re­spon­si­ble for build­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

“That is why the PNM built it, and you and Far­ley tried to ob­struct it,” he wrote.

“Now you try­ing to tief cred­it for it!!!!! YUK”

His com­ments ac­com­pa­nied a screen­shot of a post from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s X ac­count cel­e­brat­ing the open­ing as a ma­jor mile­stone for To­ba­go’s tourism, in­vest­ment and eco­nom­ic growth.

How­ev­er, To­ba­go Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett pushed back, ac­cus­ing Row­ley of seek­ing fur­ther recog­ni­tion de­spite be­ing pub­licly ac­knowl­edged at Tues­day’s cer­e­mo­ny.

“Yes, you start­ed it! No­body is dis­put­ing that!” she wrote.

Hack­ett said an­oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion had been elect­ed, as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for gov­ern­ing and brought the project to com­ple­tion.

“That is how democ­ra­cy and con­ti­nu­ity in gov­er­nance work!” she said.

She ques­tioned why Row­ley was con­tin­u­ing the ar­gu­ment three days af­ter at­tend­ing the open­ing, shak­ing hands and ex­chang­ing pleas­antries.

“Pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture is not a per­son­al tro­phy. It is an in­vest­ment in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, fund­ed by tax­pay­ers and in­tend­ed to serve gen­er­a­tions be­yond the tenure of any po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion,” Hack­ett said.

Row­ley had par­tic­i­pat­ed in an ear­li­er com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the US$129 mil­lion ter­mi­nal on March 15, 2025, short­ly be­fore re­sign­ing as prime min­is­ter that month. That event marked prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion, al­though the fa­cil­i­ty was not ready to ac­com­mo­date pas­sen­ger flights.

Then fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said fur­ther con­struc­tion, test­ing and com­mis­sion­ing were re­quired, with the first pas­sen­ger flight tar­get­ed for Ju­ly 2025.

At Tues­day’s open­ing, Hack­ett ac­knowl­edged that Row­ley con­cep­tu­alised the project and that work be­gan un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, while cred­it­ing the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion with bring­ing it to com­ple­tion. She said both con­tri­bu­tions de­served recog­ni­tion.