Where’s Wat­son Duke and how is he?

That ques­tion was be­ing asked af­ter four mem­bers of the new To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly in­clud­ing Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke were ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s first As­sem­bly sit­ting.

In­fra­struc­ture Sec­re­tary Trevor James con­firmed his ab­sence was due to COVID-19. Two oth­er Sec­re­taries said they were not COVID-pos­i­tive and Duke didn’t re­spond to calls or mes­sages about his ab­sence.

Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B.Yis­rael con­firmed that four peo­ple were ex­cused from the sit­ting - Duke and Sec­re­taries James (In­fra­struc­ture), Ian Pol­lard ( Set­tle­ments), and Nigel Taitt (as­sis­tant sec­re­tary Food Se­cu­ri­ty).

Dr B Yis­rael was mum on why they were ab­sent, in­stead ask­ing the me­dia to con­tact them each for the rea­sons.

Dur­ing the De­cem­ber 10 news con­fer­ence, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine was quot­ed as say­ing Duke was ab­sent from that func­tion as he “wasn’t feel­ing well, hav­ing de­vel­oped flu-like symp­toms overnight and he was not yet test­ed for COVID.“

Duke didn’t re­spond to text mes­sages about his health, if he got test­ed or if he had con­tract­ed COVID.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day re­ferred to Duke be­ing rep­re­sent­ed in a THA- Gov­ern­ment mat­ter on Mon­day. THA of­fi­cials sub­se­quent­ly hint­ed Duke ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly in that mat­ter.

Au­gus­tine was in a Fi­nance meet­ing and didn’t re­spond to calls or What­sApp queries. THA of­fi­cials said an of­fice for Duke wasn’t yet al­lo­cat­ed.

James how­ev­er con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia, “I was di­ag­nosed with COVID last week. My symp­toms come and go but I’ll be back to work next week.’’

Pol­lard, de­nied he had COVID and would on­ly say he took a rest and re­turns to work next week.

Taitt, who said COVID was not the is­sue for him, said he was in Trinidad where he was sent to do work. He said he was on his way back to To­ba­go when Guardian Me­dia called.

“I good...” Taitt added.

THA Mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvin Mor­ris called for trans­paren­cy by THA and its Health di­vi­sion about the ab­sence of mem­bers at this time, since he said they are all now pub­lic fig­ures.

“I wish them speedy re­turn to work and to get some word. The last thing said on Mr Duke when he was ab­sent from the swear­ing-in was that he had flu-like symp­toms so we re­main con­cerned on his ab­sence now. Many were in close prox­im­i­ty to him. There­fore it’s im­per­a­tive THA’s Health di­vi­sion say some­thing pub­licly for peo­ple to do the nec­es­sary if quar­an­tine or con­tact trac­ing is need­ed.’’