Tobago Needs a Choice: It Feels Like De Ja Vu All over Again.

Reminiscent of the reality of 2000

Former Chief Secretary, Hochoy Charles, and

Current Chief Secretary, Orville London

It feels like de ja vu all over again. 2001 former Chief Secretary Hochoy Charles was nailed to the political cross at the Tobago House of Assembly's (THA) election by a revived PNM. Even the UNC, led by a vicious Panday took a throw of the spare that seemingly wounded the NAR. The Ring Bang, Ring Bang, ADDA ADDA Ring Bang scandal, brought to its knees a mighty party that ruled Tobago for almost twenty (20) years. Today, it might be more than ideal to concur with the adage of ‘what goes around comes around’. London, the individual who broke the ADDA scandal and the person who ensured that the perception and the evidence of such stayed alive in the public mind, has now become the emphasis of a very similar scandal.

For over 10 years, Tobago’s PNM mantra has been “Protecting Tobago’s Heritage”.  And even as the lessons of over 10 years have not been learnt, and on the heels of an Executive action, which Tobagonians doesn't believe would protect our heritage, the PNM is facing the same axe that slaughtered the NAR for yet again another financial adventure. The MILSHIV project have been the public conversation in Tobago lately, and with unsatisfactory and hifalutin explanations, the THA seems to be impotent in articulating financially the immediate derived benefits of such an arrangement. The purchased of 3 acres of land for 12 million dollars, the lease to a synthetic company at 10 dollars for 199 years, and rental of a building at $15.61 per square foot per month over a 20 year period for a building totally 83000 sq. ft. seems to be a sour taste in the mouth and a bit hard for Tobagonians to digest as something of sound financial judgement. The ramifications of which would be discussed in a subsequent article.

The MILSHIV project, might be the final nail in the wooden cedar coffin of the PNM, draped and compounded with numerous criticisms of mismanagement and excessive delays in the hospital project, the library, the bus terminus, port and airport expansion, the THA campus, cultural complex, a growing, expanded tertiary educations sector, a growing and on-going agro/manufacturing sector, and the list goes on.

To see Tobagonians were blinded by the glitz and glitters promised by their “saviour” PNM, none of which have materialized over the past 10 years and which I must hasten to say would not materialized before elections or soon thereafter.  Tobago inhabitants still awaits the promise of Housing for all and Millionaires for Tobagonians as promised by the PNM in 2000. What has now become a chorus of rhetoric, verbalized at deafening decibels can only be described as preposterous.  Petty allegations levied at Central Government, blames of disrespect and attempts to further perpetuate the divide of Tobago’s population by race, ethnicity and party politics has become the order of the day.

But who suffers? The People of Tobago Suffers. Tobagonians are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Tobagonians are left without a “real” choice. Tobagonians must now accept hogwash from these mindless puppets who formulate themselves into something resembling parties but are really Gangs of criminals, dressed in suits, who should be locked away for a life time.  There is no doubt that the PNM is bereft of Vision just as their accused; the NAR of 2000.  The ideas purported by those in power and those vying to attain power, continues to remind us all of how incapable, unqualified and powerless these mindless puppets are in moving Tobago forward.

The song Haiti I’m sorry comes to mind, and so let me change it and say Tobago I’m sorry. Yes, I feel sorry for Tobago and its inhabitants. As a young Tobagonian, I somehow have come to the resolve that I should accept the fate that Tobago would not realize its true potential perhaps in my lifetime, given that we continue to recycle our political garbage. Politicians that we have discarded as defected and useless reappear in our honourable house as new and improve, only to repeat the said mistakes of the old. Tobagonians are indeed a disadvantage people. Not only are we disadvantage constitutionally, but we are also disadvantage in the choices we have in these recycled, second-hand, reprocessed, balls-less politicians. I urge Tobagonians to consider carefully your options.  We are indeed tossed between a rock and a hard place and sadly we as a people must now choose between the lesser of two evils. At this epoch, let me contend that Evil is Evil, I cannot choose the Lesser of or Greater of any Evil.

Time for Tobago to have a “Real Choice”.