Pigeon Point acquisition on course, says Sandy

THE Tobago House of Assembly’s (THA) quest to acquire the Pigeon Point estate is proceeding on course. And the Assembly is now two steps away from moving onto the beachfront property which has been at the centre of a long-standing impasse between the property owners — Robinson Crusoe Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ansa McAl Group — and the THA over public access to the popular beachhead. This was revealed by THA Secretary of Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Hilton Sandy, during his contribution to debate on the THA 2004 budget in the House on Thursday. He said: “I would like to report to this House that the (process towards) acquisition of Pigeon Point is going fine. The Director of Surveys has now sent to the Valuations Division to have valuation done at Pigeon Point and sent back so that we can move on to do (inspection) three and four and when (inspection) four is given we would move on to Pigeon Point.” Previously, Sandy had reported that the Assembly had gotten approval from the Town and Country Planning Division to ‘move forward’ with the process of acquisition and the relevant documents had been forwarded to the Director of Surveys. More recently, it was reported that Town and Country had queried the legality of certain structures allegedly erected at Club Pigeon Point within the last couple years, bringing into question the issue of compensation for the alleged illegal structures. Sandy gave the update on the move to compulsorily acquire the — acre property for public purposes, following certain claims made by Minority Leader Hochoy Charles when he opened debate on the THA’s $1.65 billion budgetary proposals. Charles claimed: “The current Assembly had turned down an opportunity to become involved in a 300-acre tourism development project at Woodlands, in Moriah, in the northern end of the island, undertaken by a Tobago family, but were now moving to spend $600 million on the Pigeon Point estate.”

“A tourism project which would have employed the land, agricultural and human resources of the area for the benefit of the area, creating jobs and so on! The developer pleaded with the THA for support; after hemming and hawing, as in their indecisive way, while looking back over their shoulders to see if Port-of-Spain would agree, they reneged on this opportunity thereby allowing ‘sharks’ from elsewhere to take over the project and 300 acres of land in a key area of Tobago.” Charles told the House. He alleged that the THA had been offered equity in the project and 120 acres of freehold land. “They refused to act!” lamented the Minority Leader. “Instead, it wants to spend $600 million to acquire land from the riches conglomerate in the country whereas it was offered both land and equity for less than $20 million — When I see this my heart bleeds and grieves for Tobago and my Tobago people,” he said. He recalled that at the launch of the Tobago NAR’s THA election campaign on November 26, 2000 he had warned that as far as they were concerned no one else would have been able to solve the Pigeon Point issue. “It would take us (the then NAR THA administration) to do it, and I said that the Tobagonian and all fisherfolk and all Tobagonians know it!” Charles reminded the House.