Dennis: Tobago looks “69, not 29”

PNM To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis says To­ba­go has “aged” un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, claim­ing the is­land de­te­ri­o­rat­ed so bad­ly that it now looks “69” in­stead of “29.”

Speak­ing in Char­lottesville, Den­nis said the past four years have tak­en a vis­i­ble toll on the is­land.

“To­ba­go used to be un­der the PNM a beau­ti­ful 25-year-old in her prime. Four years lat­er you might say, well, she should look 29. To­ba­go looks 69. And that is the truth.”

Den­nis said the de­cline is ob­vi­ous from roads to pub­lic spaces.

“I couldn’t help but no­tice the poor state of the is­land — the roads, the road­sides, the pub­lic spaces, no main­te­nance, no love, no care giv­en to this is­land that we claim to love.”

He said Char­lottesville saw some of the worst ne­glect.

“This elec­toral dis­trict has the worst roads in To­ba­go. Your fish­er­men has been aban­doned. Four years has passed and you have not seen any progress.”

He list­ed sev­er­al stalled or aban­doned projects, in­clud­ing the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, the pavil­ions, the mi­ni mall and the long-await­ed fix for the dan­ger­ous Two-Pin Bend.

“The mon­ey that was set aside to fix Turpin Bend… was used to do oth­er things in oth­er parts of the is­land to ben­e­fit oth­er peo­ple,” he said.

Den­nis said a PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion will “change the face of To­ba­go,” start­ing with roads, beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and in­fra­struc­ture.

“With good road main­te­nance you can have a sit­u­a­tion where pot­holes can be fixed with­in a few days,” he said.

He de­scribed a fu­ture where Char­lottesville has prop­er land­scap­ing, mu­rals, up­grad­ed spaces, a safer Turpin Bend and a scenic board­walk run­ning along the seafront.

He told res­i­dents they should en­joy these im­prove­ments as much as tourists:

“You shouldn’t have to wait un­til you jump on a plane and go to some­where in Flori­da… to see nice prop­er­ly main­tained side­walks with nice in­tri­cate land­scap­ing. That should be To­ba­go on a nor­mal day.”

Den­nis said tourism, agri­cul­ture and con­struc­tion will dri­ve jobs.

“We have to cre­ate more jobs… and there are no bet­ter sec­tors to do that.”