CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON�FORBES

Leader of The Plat­form for Truth Ho­choy Charles says he is will­ing to as­sist the ex­ec­u­tive of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the is­land free of charge.Short­ly af­ter the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the new ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil last Thurs­day, when the po­si­tion of mi­nor­i­ty leader was de­clared va­cant by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don said he would be ini­ti­at­ing talks with Charles, a for­mer chief sec­re­tary, and econ­o­mist Vanus James.

How­ev­er, speak­ing on a tele­vi­sion show in To­ba­go on Tues­day morn­ing, Charles said he want­ed to en­sure that To­ba­go was lib­er­at­ed and em­pow­ered, hence the rea­son the TPT en­tered the THA elec­tion. He said any team that got in­to the house should seek pow­er from the Par­lia­ment and if it is not grant­ed they should seek re­dress with the Unit­ed Na­tions, and he was will­ing to the as­sist the cur­rent THA in that re­spect.

"I am in To­ba­go to make sure that To­ba­go is lib­er­at­ed and em­pow­ered, that's my on­ly in­ter­est in To­ba­go," he said."The pur­pose was to go to the Gov­ern­ment with your team in or­der to get your pow­er, fail­ing which you can take the mat­ter to the UN so that it could have been able to be set­tled. "That's the is­sue that con­fronts To­ba­go and con­fronts Mr Lon­don and I am pre­pared to of­fer him the best ad­vice pos­si­ble and I say gratis, free," he said.

On the is­sue of there be­ing no mi­nor­i­ty leader in the THA af­ter the PNM won all 12 seats at the polls, Charles said there was no need for the post un­til there was in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go had the abil­i­ty to make its own laws"What are you go­ing to op­pose when the as­sem­bly gets its pow­er to make laws and you have to have bills?" he said.

"There is where you need a gov­ern­ment and a mi­nor­i­ty...That is what the elec­tion should have been about, that To­ba­go should get its pow­er to con­trol To­ba­go, in­clud­ing our space."You know what self-gov­ern­ment means? Your pow­er, and it's on­ly when you know what pow­er they plan to give you, you will know whether you have self-gov­ern­ment or not, not just go bandy­ing about talk­ing about self-gov­ern­ment," Charles said.