Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go East MP David Thomas says he is not sur­prised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ crit­i­cism of To­ba­go’s par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

Dur­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the new PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil ex­ec­u­tive on Tues­day, Beck­les ac­cused Thomas and To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son of mere­ly “oc­cu­py­ing space” in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She claimed both men had re­mained mute and in­vis­i­ble on sev­er­al press­ing is­sues af­fect­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans, in­clud­ing crime, the seabridge and al­lo­ca­tions to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Thomas said he un­der­stood why Beck­les be­lieved he was silent in Par­lia­ment.

“The Op­po­si­tion Leader is hard­ly ever in Par­lia­ment, so there is so much that she would miss. She has a right to make those com­ments. I am not sur­prised be­cause she is nev­er there,” Thomas said.

Thomas won the To­ba­go East seat com­fort­ably in the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, end­ing the 10-year tenure of the PNM’s Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

His To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) col­league Joel “Nuttsy” Samp­son cap­tured To­ba­go West, re­plac­ing Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, who is now the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader.

Thomas be­lieves Beck­les is at­tempt­ing to dis­tract the pub­lic from her han­dling of the con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi.

Both are al­leged to have as­sist­ed for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in prepar­ing a wit­ness state­ment for a par­lia­men­tary over­sight com­mit­tee of which John-Bates was a mem­ber.

Last Fri­day, John-Bates re­vealed that she had sub­mit­ted her res­ig­na­tion to Beck­les, while deny­ing any wrong­do­ing. Beck­les has not pub­licly stat­ed whether she in­tends to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion.

“She is try­ing to high­light us in­stead of deal­ing with Al-Rawi and Bates over that scan­dal,” Thomas said.

“She is show­ing weak­ness and try­ing to shy away from the crit­i­cal na­ture of the prob­lem they have in the Par­lia­ment and the Sen­ate.”

The for­mer fire of­fi­cer al­so de­fend­ed his per­for­mance as an MP, say­ing Beck­les and the PNM would have four years to try to un­seat him.

“She has four years to find a suit­able can­di­date that can de­feat me at the polls.

“She has four years to be able to hold on to her po­si­tion, and she has four years to show she is wor­thy of lead­ing this coun­try.”

Thomas added: “If she spends all the time con­cen­trat­ing on me — who knows when to speak and when not to speak — then she would find her­self with much ground to cov­er in the up­com­ing elec­tions this coun­try will face. I am not wor­ried about her. That might be the strongest she has ever spo­ken since she has been lead­ing the Op­po­si­tion.”

In her speech on Tues­day, Beck­les al­so ad­dressed the is­sue of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my, as­sur­ing sup­port­ers that the PNM re­mained com­mit­ted to achiev­ing sus­tain­able re­form.

The for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion brought au­ton­o­my bills to Par­lia­ment in 2024, but failed to se­cure the spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty need­ed for pas­sage af­ter the then Op­po­si­tion UNC vot­ed against them.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met on March 27 to dis­cuss a path­way to­ward To­ba­go self-gov­er­nance.

Asked for an up­date on To­ba­go’s push for greater au­ton­o­my, Thomas said dis­cus­sions were on­go­ing.

“The thing is, every­thing about this life is about tac­tics and strat­e­gy. It is about plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion and I think, from where we sit, our plan is well put to­geth­er and, as it un­folds, peo­ple will be­come au courant with what is tak­ing place,” he said.

Mean­while, Samp­son told Guardian Me­dia he was un­both­ered by Beck­les’ com­ments, ac­cus­ing her of hav­ing been “asleep” for the last decade.