PNM ASSEMBLYMAN FIRED

PNM Assemblyman Hughford McKenna, who has now thrown his support behind the Democratic Action Congress (DAC), has been fired as Secretary of Agriculture at the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and has effectively “expelled himself” from the ruling party. That was the word yesterday from THA Chief Secretary and PNM Deputy Political Leader (Tobago Affairs), Orville London, following McKenna’s appearance on the DAC platform at Scarborough Market Square on Sunday evening.

In an exclusive photograph in yesterday’s Newsday, McKenna publicly donned a DAC jersey on the platform before the DAC’s official campaign launch and presentation of its 12 candidates of Team DAC 2005, to contest the January 17 THA elections. This was the latest development in the maze of political twists and turns which characterises the run-up to the polls. McKenna also told Newsday while he was not a DAC candidate for the upcoming polls, he was supporting the party 150 percent. McKenna had said, “I am. I have instructions from the people in my electoral district. They say anywhere I go they will support me. That’s a mandate! I don’t want no other mandate but the mandate from the people in Tobago. All about in the airport and the market yesterday (Saturday) people say ‘Mr McKenna, wherever you go I am going to support you because you are the only man who I see will take Tobago some place.’” McKenna also criticised the “bad leadership of Orville London. “It is the worst leadership!” he declared.

However, speaking to reporters after the launch of the Tobago segment of the Multi-sector Skills Training Programme (Must) at Coco Reef Hotel, Crown Point yesterday, London said he had advised President George Maxwell Richards to revoke the appointment of McKenna as Secretary of Agriculture/Marine Affairs/the Environment. London said he has assumed responsibility for that division. He said he had also written to McKenna informing him of this decision. “By his actions,  Mc Kenna would have automatically expelled himself from the PNM, and one cannot have a non-member of the PNM as a Secretary in a PNM administration,” London asserted. “I thought I would have found a resignation from Mr McKenna on my desk this morning, but I did not and therefore in those circumstances I had to take that action,” he told reporters.