Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has wel­comed To­ba­go’s in­clu­sion as Dis­trict 7 un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, de­scrib­ing it as a nec­es­sary mea­sure to help tack­le crime and strength­en se­cu­ri­ty on the is­land.

The bill was passed in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark cast the de­cid­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions in Rox­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go’s unique ge­og­ra­phy made its in­clu­sion in the leg­is­la­tion im­por­tant.

“To­ba­go needs to be in­clud­ed. We are a ma­rine state, an ocean­ic state, mean­ing we have a lot more mar­itime space than we have ter­res­tri­al space. That means that we have a chal­lenge with se­cu­ri­ty, oc­ca­sion­al­ly,” he said.

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties are giv­en en­hanced pow­ers to des­ig­nate ar­eas with­in a dis­trict as “closed ar­eas”, with cur­fews im­posed and per­mits re­quired for en­try or tran­sit.

While back­ing the bill, Au­gus­tine said he does not ex­pect its pro­vi­sions to be used fre­quent­ly in To­ba­go be­cause of the is­land’s rel­a­tive­ly low crime rate.

“I don’t see it be­ing need­ed in To­ba­go very of­ten be­cause our lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty con­tin­ues to be low. The on­ly thing we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing now is a spate of rob­beries,” he said.

The Chief Sec­re­tary not­ed that To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­enced a surge in mur­ders be­tween 2023 and 2024 but said stronger polic­ing mea­sures helped bring the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. He ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion would al­low law en­force­ment to re­spond quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to emerg­ing threats be­fore they es­ca­late.

Asked whether the bill could harm To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try, Au­gus­tine dis­missed the con­cern, say­ing crime pos­es a far greater threat to vis­i­tor ar­rivals than the leg­is­la­tion it­self.

“Crime is a big­ger chal­lenge to tourism than the bill is. Every­where we go, every­body we talk to, they bring up these warn­ings that the US and UK give about crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am at pains to ex­plain that it’s not re­al­ly in To­ba­go, it’s in Trinidad,” he said.

Au­gus­tine added that To­ba­go’s tourism prod­uct con­tin­ues to suf­fer from the neg­a­tive per­cep­tion cre­at­ed by high lev­els of crime in Trinidad, un­der­min­ing the is­land’s mar­ket­ing ef­forts.

Mean­while, the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty leader said he was not over­ly con­cerned that the leg­is­la­tion does not ex­plic­it­ly re­quire con­sul­ta­tion with the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary be­fore any spe­cial op­er­a­tion is con­duct­ed on the is­land.

Dur­ing de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son pro­posed amend­ments re­quir­ing manda­to­ry con­sul­ta­tion with the Chief Sec­re­tary be­fore op­er­a­tions are launched in To­ba­go.

Al­though At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ac­knowl­edged the pro­pos­al, he said such a re­quire­ment did not need to be cod­i­fied in law. He in­stead as­sured Par­lia­ment that con­sul­ta­tion would take place, cit­ing his good work­ing re­la­tion­ship with Au­gus­tine.

Yes­ter­day, the Chief Sec­re­tary said that while he would have pre­ferred the con­sul­ta­tion re­quire­ment to be in­clud­ed in the leg­is­la­tion, the prac­ti­cal re­al­i­ties of gov­er­nance in To­ba­go make con­sul­ta­tion un­avoid­able.

“Ide­al­ly, it should have been stat­ed in the leg­is­la­tion, but when you look at the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of the leg­is­la­tion, there is prac­ti­cal­ly no way it could be im­ple­ment­ed in To­ba­go with­out my in­volve­ment or the THA, be­cause all of the sup­port­ing arms are con­trolled by the THA,” Au­gus­tine said.

“That in­cludes the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, am­bu­lances, our streets and our schools. If it has to be suc­cess­ful in To­ba­go, there is ab­solute­ly no way it can hap­pen with­out the THA or me be­ing con­sult­ed.”