The Op­po­si­tion stayed away from the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day as the de­bate on the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill, 2021 con­tin­ued.

In a press con­fer­ence as the de­bate was un­der­way, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Bill of­fers noth­ing to the peo­ple of To­ba­go and will not re­ceive the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion.

On Tues­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the oth­er Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment walked out of the Par­lia­ment, cit­ing breach­es of the Stand­ing Or­ders of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Yes­ter­day, she held a press con­fer­ence, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to strength­en its ‘choke­hold’ on To­ba­go.

“Their view is that their pol­i­cy must pre­vail over the peo­ple and over the will of To­ba­go, To­ba­go is say­ing it is not the will of To­ba­go. This was nev­er meant to be in­ter­nal self-gov­er­nance, it was meant to ce­ment the PNM, to im­pose the will of PNM on To­ba­go- those bills,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said To­bag­o­ni­ans de­serve true self-gov­er­nance but the Bill pro­pos­es that on­ly in name.

“The on­ly self-gov­er­nance that those bills of­fered was in name but in con­text, it re­al­ly sub­ject­ed To­ba­go to even more reg­u­la­tions to be de­cid­ed in Port-of-Spain, to be de­cid­ed by the Cab­i­net, the PNM Cab­i­net- not in To­ba­go, not in Scar­bor­ough.”

The Op­po­si­tion has called on the Gov­ern­ment to hold more con­sul­ta­tions be­fore the Bill is passed in­to law. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day the Bill in its cur­rent form has not been seen by To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“They’ve gut­ted it from a 20 clause bill, re­duced to how many claus­es, they delet­ed Clause 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18. They’ve delet­ed the pre­am­ble to the bill, they delet­ed the cer­tifi­cate that would have been in­clud­ed, say­ing this got the req­ui­site ma­jor­i­ty, that been delet­ed. It re­minds us of the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, how they gut­ted that out,” she said.

La­belling the leg­is­la­tion ‘to­tal­ly waste less” Per­sad-Bisses­sar tore up a copy of it, say­ing it con­tained noth­ing for the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

She said by re­mov­ing these claus­es, the Gov­ern­ment gave them­selves room to pass the Bill with­out a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. She said while the Gov­ern­ment may think this amounts to ‘spit­ing’ the UNC, it was the peo­ple of To­ba­go who were be­ing spit­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said To­bag­o­ni­ans have the Op­po­si­tion’s sup­port in their quest for self-gov­er­nance.

The Op­po­si­tion leader al­so said the Op­po­si­tion bench in­tends to file a mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence in House speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George.

She said the Op­po­si­tion has been dis­cussing do­ing so for some time but An­nisette-George’s de­ci­sion to al­low Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to cite Stand­ing Or­der 46:2 and close the de­bate on the To­ba­go bill was ‘un­bear­able.’

“We have been keep­ing notes on many times when we be­lieve there were breach­es of the Stand­ing Or­ders in terms of the rul­ing of the Speak­er, this one will be the lat­est in a se­ries of those.”

She said al­though the Gov­ern­ment will de­feat the mo­tion with their ma­jor­i­ty, fil­ing it al­lows the Op­po­si­tion to make is­sues in the Par­lia­ment pub­lic.

“Be­cause many times peo­ple don’t un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing there, I know there are some of our sup­port­ers and oth­ers who say why the Op­po­si­tion so qui­et? Why don’t they do some­thing? It is be­cause we are con­strained and con­strict­ed by these Stand­ing Or­ders,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Op­po­si­tion leader al­so sought to ex­plain why her par­ty did not of­fer any can­di­dates for the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion in To­ba­go.

“They say we don’t fight in To­ba­go but I have a rea­son for that, we re­spect the peo­ple of To­ba­go and their right to self-gov­er­nance. Why would I take a UNC can­di­date, a par­ty ground­ed in Trinidad to put a can­di­date in To­ba­go? Why? When the peo­ple of To­ba­go are to­tal­ly com­pe­tent to gov­ern their own af­fairs, po­lit­i­cal­ly and oth­er­wise.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to make To­ba­go a colony of Trinidad.

“As I said be­fore, you have a pre­mier, they are go­ing back to colo­nial days, so King Row­ley now wants to make pro­vi­sions for To­ba­go to­geth­er with his courtiers as they call them…what they are do­ing here is every­where you see the word Chief Sec­re­tary, delete and you will now see the word pre­mier, so we will now have a pre­mier in To­ba­go- every­where you see deputy chief sec­re­tary, delete it and re­place it with deputy Pre­mier,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.