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  • 2 days ago
With the January 12th Tobago House of Assembly elections looming, Dr. Denise Tsoiafatt Angus, political leader of the Innovative Democratic Alliance, says Tobagonians are being offered a bottom-up approach for the first time by her party. She adds that the I.D.A. is ready to lift people out of poverty, reduce dependence on central government handouts, and create opportunities for self-sufficiency and sustainable development.

TV6'S Nicole M Romany has the details.
Transcript
00:00Political leader of the IDA, Dr. Soifat Angus, says her party intends to give the people
00:06a share of the benefits rather than letting the spoils remain at the top while the man
00:12on the ground is left out.
00:14She adds that the party plans to organize Tobago into community councils and she outlines
00:21how this grassroots approach will work to benefit the people.
00:25We are going to organize you into community councils, asset owning, enterprise, community
00:34councils.
00:35We'll organize you that way and we will give you $25 million each community.
00:42So you begin to decide what are your priorities and you can execute them utilizing contractors
00:50from your communities, utilizing persons from your communities to do that work.
00:56She tells The Morning Edition the country is already in crisis and Tobago must become self-sufficient
01:04rather than rely on the uncertain 5% from central government.
01:09She promises a governance structure that listens to the people.
01:14The opposite, she says, to the approach Tobago has experienced recently.
01:18What we need to do is begin to bolster ourselves, begin to find strength within ourselves, become
01:26resilient, become self-sufficient such that in the future that cannot happen to us like that.
01:34That no prime minister can disrespect the people of Tobago by just bringing something in the secrecy
01:42of the night, the dead of the night, dropping it in there and said, I didn't need to tell
01:47you anything.
01:48Dr. Soifert Angus also raises concerns about the ExxonMobil arrangement.
01:54They've had the certificate of the environmental clearance certificate, they got that approved.
02:03But they have not gotten, they did not do the environmental impact assessment, no consultations.
02:12And yet we have not heard the chief secretary stand up for the fisherfolk who will be greatly
02:18impacted on this island.
02:21He has not stood up for them, instead what he has done is assume that those monies are
02:30coming in.
02:31Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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