ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is de­fend­ing his de­ci­sion to have two sec­re­taries in the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties, and Trans­porta­tion, in­sist­ing he had done noth­ing wrong.

Au­gus­tine said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Act gave him the pow­er to re­as­sign or split re­spon­si­bil­i­ties among sec­re­taries, and that his ac­tions were ful­ly with­in the law.

On Sep­tem­ber 15, Au­gus­tine as­signed Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett to serve along­side Tashia Bur­ris in the Tourism Di­vi­sion to tem­porar­i­ly split re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

For­mer chief sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis had ac­cused Au­gus­tine of break­ing the law. Au­gus­tine de­nied any wrong­do­ing. He said if Den­nis sus­pects an il­le­gal act, he should have brought a le­gal chal­lenge.

Last week dur­ing the ple­nary sit­ting of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, As­sem­bly­man and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke asked who was re­al­ly the Tourism Sec­re­tary, say­ing he was un­sure.

But yes­ter­day dur­ing a vir­tu­al me­dia brief­ing, Au­gus­tine said, “I as­signed and re­as­signed the du­ties as I deemed it nec­es­sary for en­sur­ing the prop­er func­tion­ing of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. And that is my right in law. There is noth­ing il­le­gal about that.”

Au­gus­tine ex­plained that Sec­tion 37 of the THA Act au­tho­rised him to tem­porar­i­ly as­sign du­ties, split di­vi­sions, and trans­fer re­spon­si­bil­i­ties be­tween sec­re­taries. He said that the mat­ter was ad­min­is­tra­tive, not le­gal.

“So es­sen­tial­ly, as it now stands, Sec­re­tary Hack­ett has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for du­ties for ed­u­ca­tion, for re­search, for tech­nol­o­gy, for an­tiq­ui­ties, and cul­ture. Sec­re­tary Boris has re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for tourism, and she has re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for trans­porta­tion,” Au­gus­tine said.

He clar­i­fied that all tem­po­rary re­as­sign­ments were com­mu­ni­cat­ed in writ­ing to the rel­e­vant sec­re­taries and ad­min­is­tra­tors. “I re­as­signed in writ­ing, not word of mouth… Sec­re­tary Hack­ett takes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for an­tiq­ui­ties and cul­ture, and Sec­re­tary Boris re­tains re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for tourism and trans­porta­tion. This is tem­po­rary and can be re­voked at my dis­cre­tion,” he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so men­tioned that the law al­lowed the Chief Sec­re­tary to man­age port­fo­lios as he saw fit, with­out seek­ing ap­proval from mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil, the Pres­i­dent, cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, or the THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader. “I am so legal­ly au­tho­rised. I don’t need per­mis­sion from any­body to do that. I don’t need to con­sult with a mi­nor­i­ty… or even mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive,” he added.

He spoke of oth­er ex­am­ples of ad­min­is­tra­tive flex­i­bil­i­ty un­der his of­fice, in­clud­ing the re­as­sign­ment of the De­part­ment of Nat­ur­al Re­sources and the En­vi­ron­ment to the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary.

He said his ap­proach was guid­ed by a prin­ci­ple of ef­fec­tive­ness. This, he said, en­sures the THA Act is ap­plied in a prac­ti­cal way. “It could nev­er have been the in­ten­tion of Par­lia­ment… to stymie or to hin­der the abil­i­ty of the Chief Sec­re­tary to man­age the port­fo­lios as­signed to the THA,” he added.

In re­sponse, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said this was Au­gus­tine’s in­di­rect ad­mis­sion that Bur­ris was un­able to man­age her own di­vi­sion, while Duke con­tin­ued to in­sist the move was il­le­gal and promised to prove his point be­fore he takes ac­tion.