LONDON: NO RIFT IN TOBAGO PNM CAMP

People’s National Movement’s (PNM) Deputy Political Leader with responsibility for Tobago Affairs, Orville London, has denied there is  a rift among members in the party’s Tobago arm. At the same time he made it clear that party matters or issues that impact on the party will be dealt with within the party.

London was responding to reports of an incident at a “community” meeting hosted by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) at Moriah, in which MP for Tobago East, Eudine Job-Davis, openly criticised the Assembly leadership for not formally informing her of the meeting. The meeting was one in a series of “Meet The Communities” meetings being held throughout the island by the THA. Speaking from the floor, Job-Davis, MP for the area, expressed her displeasure at being sidelined by the Assembly. She was also involved in a heated exchange with a PNM Assemblyman who was present and who upbraided her for publicly embarassing the party. He had angrily advised her that she could resign from the party if she had a “problem,” and she had responded by daring them to expel her. There have been reports that Job-Davis and certain top party officials in the island have not been seeing “eye to eye” for some time now. However, London dismissed this. “The question of a rift in the party, that is not an issue,” he insisted. “I wish however to indicate that party matters as far as I am concerned should be dealt with within the party, and the only reason why I feel that I am impelled to speak about the issue is that it is a THA initiative and as the Chief Secretary I have a responsibility to discuss those issues that impact on the THA.” He emphasised: “Those issues that impact on the party, the party has its organs, it has its processes for treating with it, and they would be dealt with within the party!”

With respect to the incident at Moriah, London said: “I want us to understand that the ‘Meet the Communities’ programme is a THA programme; it is not a PNM programme, it is not a central government programme. It is the Chief Secretary and the Secretaries and the Assistant Secretaries reporting to the communities of Tobago whom they represent, and ensuring that they get from those communities the necessary information, the necessary concerns, the necessary recommendation,” he stressed. London said that “out of courtesy” the parliamentary representatives were invited to the meetings because “we believe that they are part of the process.” He asserted: “And I am certain that no parliamentary representative who was given a formal invitation, would have been given that formal invitation, or the invitation would have been sent to the designated place, no less than 48 hours before the event; and that invitation would have gone out with all the other invitations about the event.  So that the question of any kind of discrimination as far as I am concerned is not an issue,” declared London. “The question of a rift in the party, that is not an issue!”