Win­ford James

In his Bud­get for Fis­cal 2023, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­lo­cat­ed, as he has done in pre­vi­ous bud­gets, a pal­try $300 mil­lion for the THA’s de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme but far greater funds to min­istries and state agen­cies ‘to un­der­take and ex­e­cute ma­jor projects and pro­grammes’ in To­ba­go. These lat­ter al­lo­ca­tions amount to $731.5 mil­lion for Fis­cal 2023–a whop­ping $431.5 mil­lion more or more than dou­ble the al­lo­ca­tion to the THA. The Min­is­ter is con­tin­u­ing Trinidad’s bold­faced and shame­less coloni­sa­tion of To­ba­go and, on top of that, play­ing smart with stu­pid­ness.

Let’s go back to the To­ba­go sec­tion of his state­ment to re­fresh our mem­o­ries on oth­er per­ti­nent mat­ters. He tells us that the two Au­ton­o­my Bills laid in the Par­lia­ment in 2021 were re­ject­ed ‘in the PDP elec­tion cam­paign’, but then he goes on to say, in the re­flex of the colo­nial gov­er­nor: ‘These two bills will pro­vide the peo­ple of To­ba­go with a greater say and de­ter­mi­na­tion of their af­fairs and I en­cour­age mem­bers op­po­site to fa­cil­i­tate the pas­sage of these bills and place To­ba­go in a bet­ter po­si­tion to ad­vance its de­vel­op­ment man­date and in­crease its con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.’

The gump­tion of the man! The peo­ple of To­ba­go vot­ed against the bills, but Colm Im­bert, this mod­ern-day mir­ror of a colo­nial gov­er­nor, knows best. He in­sists that the bills WILL pro­vide To­bag­o­ni­ans with the need­ed say and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion! And he blames the Op­po­si­tion for not join­ing the Gov­ern­ment in their stu­pid­ness. The Gov­ern­ment is right and the peo­ple of To­ba­go and the par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion are wrong! Ob­vi­ous­ly!

He states that the Stud­ley Park Quar­ry, now un­der the PDP-led THA, could make ‘an im­me­di­ate and sus­tained con­tri­bu­tion to con­struc­tion in To­ba­go and Trinidad.’ But he felt bound to con­strain the prospect with the self-right­eous-sound­ing ‘if prop­er­ly man­aged’, leav­ing open the ques­tion ‘Did the PNM-led THA man­age the quar­ry prop­er­ly?’

He de­clares that ‘the tourism sec­tor is poised to ex­pand with new ho­tel in­vestors aim­ing to meet the short­fall of rooms’ and he bold­ly in­forms us that the Gov­ern­ment has agreed for Mar­riot to es­tab­lish a ho­tel at Rocky Point and is ac­tive­ly en­cour­ag­ing pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment in it. This, in the face of a THA that is re­spon­si­ble for tourism in the is­land and that has been robbed of that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. It is al­so a con­tin­u­a­tion of a mod­el of tourism that has been un­der­per­form­ing all over the Caribbean–sun, sea, and sand tourism.

Fur­ther, the Gov­ern­ment is most­ly in charge of con­struct­ing the new Ter­mi­nal Build­ing for the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port plus a Ma­ri­na in South­west To­ba­go.

These are Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives, but from the way they are ex­pressed in the bud­get state­ment, you won­der if Im­bert isn’t try­ing to make the peo­ple of To­ba­go think that they are ini­tia­tives of their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the THA–both the pre­vi­ous and cur­rent ones.

This think­ing and act­ing for To­ba­go by the Gov­ern­ment–this con­tin­u­ing coloni­sa­tion of To­ba­go–has been stan­dard fare since To­ba­go joined up with Trinidad a cen­tu­ry and a third ago.

It is cer­tain­ly en­shrined in Act 37 of 1980 and Act 40 of 1996. Act 37 of 1980, which had us so ex­cit­ed with the lit­tle au­ton­o­my it of­fered, says in­ter alia in Sec­tion 21:

‘The As­sem­bly shall for­mu­late and im­ple­ment pol­i­cy on all mat­ters re­ferred to it by the Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance shall con­sult the As­sem­bly on mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance such as the an­nu­al bud­get, de­vel­op­ment projects, and the op­er­a­tion and use of the long-term funds as they re­late to To­ba­go and sub­ject to this Act the As­sem­bly shall be re­spon­si­ble for im­ple­ment­ing in To­ba­go, Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy re­lat­ing to…’

What fol­lows is a list of ar­eas for Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy mak­ing and As­sem­bly im­ple­men­ta­tion.

So the Cab­i­net and the Par­lia­ment set up a (new but wa­tered-down) ver­sion of the As­sem­bly and prompt­ly pro­ceeds to force the As­sem­bly to do the bid­ding of the Gov­ern­ment. Jeezan­ages!

You would think that things would es­sen­tial­ly change in the 1996 Act 16 years lat­er. But that act has tak­en us to where we are to­day: three sched­ules, with one set­ting out the ju­ris­dic­tion of the THA, a sec­ond the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, and a third, the ju­ris­dic­tion of min­istries and state agen­cies in To­ba­go; and con­sti­tu­tion­al con­straints on the per­for­mance by the As­sem­bly of its sched­ule func­tions.

The func­tions must be per­formed ‘with­out prej­u­dice to’ sec­tion 75(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which cit­ed phrase a high court judge has ruled to mean some­thing like ‘in ac­cor­dance with’ or ‘sub­ject to’. And sec­tion 4 of the act seems to con­firm the in­ter­pre­ta­tion:

‘No pro­vi­sion of this act or of an As­sem­bly Law shall be con­strued or in­ter­pret­ed so as to au­tho­rise—

(a)  any­thing which is in­con­sis­tent with, or con­trary to or in dero­ga­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.’

So the au­ton­o­my of the THA is con­strained by the Con­sti­tu­tion, which is made by the Par­lia­ment and is al­ter­able by it.

The mat­ter is clear. To­ba­go’s coloni­sa­tion by Trinidad is a func­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which is why in the elec­tions To­ba­go re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s Au­ton­o­my Bills, so-called.

Im­bert’s Bud­get for Fis­cal 2023 is mere­ly the lat­est proof of it.