Chief Secretary Farley Augustine expects that the extended ANR Robinson International Airport would be operational by month end, early September. Howver he points out that it is yet to get International Airport Certification that is mandatory before this can happen. More from Elizabeth Williams.
00:00Well an airport can't just be open like that. An airport has to be certified, internationally certified, for it to be open.
00:07And I have asked the Minister to come and detail honestly for Peter Burgundy some of the requirements before that airport can be open.
00:18What people don't know is that the Friday before the so-called practical completion opening, the then Minister of Works met with me.
00:28And in that meeting they were asking us for the first time to do some additional roads in order to facilitate that airport opening.
00:38Mr. Augustine said he had spoken to former Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan under the previous PNM administration when the need for additional roadway to the airport was brought to the forefront.
00:52In that discussion they talked about widening the actual store bay local road.
00:57And I said listen, that means moving people property line, you go and take the land from the people and then come back to me.
01:05The airport should have had a road going behind Apex, a dedicated road behind Apex.
01:12I'm not sure why they did not build that road to manage traffic.
01:15So that is just one of the things that the international agencies like FAA will be looking at before granting that certification.
01:24So it's not as simple as it's been a nice airport, it looks pretty, planes can land and you could proceed to open the airport.
01:31Mr. Augustine said it now possesses a threat to the current airport's certification.
01:38We also have to get some work done where the fire station is concerned and the operations there because we have had some recent threats to our certification because of operations at the fire station there.
01:55In fact, just two weeks ago I saw an email from the airport's authority then about some threats that we had in terms of dunk raiding A&R Robinson because a fire tender shot down at the runway for an extensive period and just could not be moved.
02:12I don't know what were the circumstances behind that.
02:15But he says the opening of the A&R Robinson International Airport Expansion Project by month end into early September is still on the cards.
02:26I'm hearing that we're looking at some time towards the end of August into September, but certainly I would like to see how we could get those additional things done quickly.
02:38And I'm not sure why they were done in the first place before the commissioning of the airport.
02:43Minority leader Kelvin Morris is having his say in a social media post on the roadway near the airport.
02:51He said, quote, let me remind the chief secretary that it was his administration who stopped the central government from building a proper two lane road to the airport.
03:02The money was already there for the project.
03:04Instead, he chose to spend over one hundred million dollars of Tobago's money on a smaller single lane road.
03:13That decision ended up in court at the time.
03:16He argued that road construction was a scheduled five matter and therefore under the control of the T.
03:23Now he is blaming the central government for not building a road behind apex before pointing fingers at Port of Spain.
03:32Perhaps it would be better to tell the truth about who made the choice and why we are in this position today.
03:39Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
03:46have an opportunity for me to give a few people's attention to him.
03:47There's so many people's attention to him.
03:48Dealer of the T.
03:49Can you hear that?
03:50What does that mean?
03:51What does that mean when you're going forward?
03:52What does that mean?
03:53That's when you're like, I know.
03:54Tonight, when I'm in the morning that you've seen all this, I'm going forward to it.
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