Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The com­mis­sion­ing of the US$129 mil­lion ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal in To­ba­go yes­ter­day took the tone of a po­lit­i­cal show­down.

Some mem­bers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Ex­ec­u­tive, in­clud­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, re­mained al­most emo­tion­less dur­ing the speech­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Au­gus­tine was called out by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and told to meet with San­dals of­fi­cials.

Not every­one ap­peared pleased with the PM’s tone.

A few even seemed tak­en aback by the in­di­rect crit­i­cism of their han­dling of To­ba­go’s econ­o­my and de­vel­op­ment.

The crowd, how­ev­er, cheered loud­ly when Sham­fa Cud­joe, the Min­is­ter of Sport, de­liv­ered a po­em that high­light­ed the PNM’s de­ter­mi­na­tion to im­prove To­ba­go de­spite on­go­ing crit­i­cism from po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and de­trac­tors.

A pas­tor, de­liv­er­ing re­marks at the event, praised the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and its work on the is­land.

Au­gus­tine did not want to com­ment as he left be­fore tour­ing the ter­mi­nal. How­ev­er, he said he would speak soon. Duke, mean­while, de­scribed the cer­e­mo­ny as the launch of the PNM elec­tion cam­paign.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who al­so ad­dressed the gath­er­ing, spoke of the sig­nif­i­cance of the project’s “prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion,” not­ing that while the ter­mi­nal was near­ly com­plete, it would still take a few months be­fore it could be ful­ly op­er­a­tional.

“The ter­mi­nal will be com­plet­ed by April,” Im­bert said, “but it will take a few more months of test­ing and com­mis­sion­ing be­fore it can han­dle pas­sen­ger flights. Our goal is to have the first pas­sen­ger flight by Ju­ly 2025.”

Im­bert said that the old Crown Point ter­mi­nal, which had served To­ba­go for many years, was no longer enough to han­dle the is­land’s growth.

In ad­di­tion to the ter­mi­nal, Im­bert shared some de­tails on the ex­pand­ed in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing new taxi­ways, park­ing aprons, and in­ter­nal roads. He al­so point­ed out that the air­port would fea­ture air bridges, a first for To­ba­go, as well as high-tech bag­gage han­dling and mod­ern se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment.

“This ter­mi­nal will be one of the best in the re­gion,” he said. “With air bridges, mod­ern se­cu­ri­ty, and ad­vanced bag­gage han­dling sys­tems, it is de­signed to meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.”

Im­bert al­so not­ed that the project had been de­liv­ered with im­pres­sive cost ef­fi­cien­cy. The ter­mi­nal was built at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US $6,000 per square me­tre, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the Caribbean and glob­al av­er­ages.

“This project was com­plet­ed at a frac­tion of the cost of sim­i­lar projects,” he stat­ed. “The cost per pas­sen­ger is just US $53, which is far be­low the re­gion­al av­er­age of US $177.”

Her­bert George, chair­man of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd, said that the fi­nal cost over­runs are yet to be de­ter­mined by con­trac­tors.

The new air­port ter­mi­nal is de­signed to han­dle up to three mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year and ac­com­mo­date 1,000 pas­sen­gers per hour. This ca­pac­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to help boost To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness, and make the is­land a more at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­vestors.

The old ter­mi­nal will be re­pur­posed in­to a ded­i­cat­ed car­go and ad­min­is­tra­tive cen­tre, fur­ther en­hanc­ing To­ba­go’s in­fra­struc­ture.

Im­bert called the project a “mile­stone” for To­ba­go and the coun­try. “This is a ma­jor mile­stone for To­ba­go and the en­tire na­tion,” he said. “It’s a tes­ta­ment to what we can achieve when we fo­cus on the long-term growth and de­vel­op­ment of our is­lands.”

He al­so ex­plained why the ter­mi­nal re­tained its name, say­ing Robin­son, for­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent of T&T, re­mains one of To­ba­go’s most re­spect­ed lead­ers, who al­ways be­lieved in the is­land’s po­ten­tial. “ANR Robin­son’s vi­sion for To­ba­go will al­ways be re­mem­bered … This ter­mi­nal is a fit­ting trib­ute to his lega­cy.”