RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi says the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act is clear and Wat­son Duke can­not hold the post of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent while serv­ing as THA deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

How­ev­er, ad­dress­ing the is­sue at his con­stituen­cy of­fice on Sat­ur­day, Al-Rawi said he will not “act against any­one as it re­lates to up­hold­ing the law un­less he gets a re­sponse from the THA sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.”

Al-Rawi re­it­er­at­ed that it is a breach of the THA Act if Duke re­mains as PSA pres­i­dent while serv­ing as THA deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. 

“It is clear in law. But I am await­ing (Au­gus­tine’s) re­sponse, he is a man of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“I will abide by his re­sponse and I will take the steps to en­sure that the law is up­held. We must re­spect the process and I will take the steps that are ad­vis­able but the law is the law,” Al-Rawi said.

He not­ed that he had done his part as AG to cau­tion Au­gus­tine about the bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of the law.

“I have told Au­gus­tine that (Duke) can­not hold two posts un­der law. The Cab­i­net, THA, we are all guid­ed by the laws un­der which we op­er­ate. The THA Act is very clear and I will al­low Mr Au­gus­tine, as the head of THA, to form his views and I must abide by the process. I await his re­sponse and I will take the steps in the cir­cum­stances,” Al Rawi added. 

Asked whether the THA Act su­per­seded the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions for­mu­lat­ed un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, Al-Rawi told re­porters that they al­ready knew the an­swers to that ques­tion. “Let’s not en­gage in fan­ta­sy. The job of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the AG is to up­hold the law. We are not re-in­vent­ing the law. We are ac­cus­tomed to re­vi­sions in the law. We must sup­port the THA, that will be my sol­id in­ten­tion to pro­vide the role and func­tion of AG,” Al-Rawi said.

Ac­cord­ing to the THA Act, “A Sec­re­tary or the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer shall not en­gage in any trade, busi­ness, oc­cu­pa­tion or oth­er un­der­tak­ing for prof­it or re­mu­ner­a­tion oth­er than serv­ing as Sec­re­tary or Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.”

In a state­ment on Tues­day, a day af­ter Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) trounced the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in a 14-1 vic­to­ry in the THA elec­tion, the PSA an­nounced that its ex­ec­u­tive had unan­i­mous­ly de­cid­ed that Duke would con­tin­ue to car­ry out his con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties as PSA pres­i­dent but will no longer be re­ceiv­ing ben­e­fits and re­mu­ner­a­tions as­signed to the po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, this has been deemed il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al by the for­mer PSA pres­i­dent and for­mer PNM Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

But there have been op­pos­ing views as well, with sev­er­al for­mer and cur­rent trade union move­ment lead­ers al­so say­ing there is noth­ing that pre­vents Duke from hold­ing dual roles.