Richard Lord

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Ash­worth Jack says he is hop­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley does not make good on his promise not to co-op­er­ate with the Gov­ern­ment when leg­is­la­tion to give To­ba­go in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment is brought to Par­lia­ment for ap­proval in the com­ing months. Jack spoke in an in­ter­view af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion of the $58.4 bil­lion na­tion­al bud­get in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.

"I hope the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion doesn't car­ry through on his veiled threat of not sup­port­ing any leg­is­la­tion that needs a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty," he said, "be­cause I don't know how he is go­ing to come home." Row­ley and Jack are from the same vil­lage in To­ba­go, Ma­son Hall. "I will love to see how he will cam­paign and tell peo­ple that he didn't sup­port some­thing that To­bag­o­ni­ans have been clam­our­ing for, for as long as 150 years," Jack added.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai said the leg­is­la­tion was ex­pect­ed to be tabled in Par­lia­ment in the com­ing months. Howai's an­nounce­ment was met with im­me­di­ate op­po­si­tion as PNM Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald shout­ed across the floor, "We don't trust you."

Mean­while, Jack was hap­py about the al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go in the bud­get. He was very crit­i­cal of the man­ner in which the mon­ey giv­en to the PNM-con­trolled THA was be­ing spent on the is­land. The leg­is­la­tion is ex­pect­ed to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment be­fore the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-due THA?elec­tions in Jan­u­ary next year.