The Prime Minister was clear, at Hochoy’s funeral, that he was not coming back to Tobagonians on the form and shape of the autonomy bills that were before the Parliament. It was time to take them to the Parliament, who will decide.
The two bills were modifications of the Orville London Bill of 2016 and they were put before the electorate in the lead-up to the THA elections in December 2021 and sufficiently ventilated. As he had told Hochoy, the latter had to remember the ’nancy story of the Greek mythical hero Icarus and be careful he did not overreach with his ambition for autonomy. Three-quarters of a loaf was better than none and only a fool would starve in the presence of food.
So the parliamentarians will soon vote on the bills, whose passage requires special majorities in the two houses and therefore the support of the Opposition.
In the meantime, the Government has set up a seven-member committee to develop the terms of reference and a working paper for a National Consultation (to be held in June) on Constitutional Reform within a three-month period. The committee comprises Barry Sinanan (chair), Dr Terrence Farrell, Raye Sandy, Jacqui Sampson-Meiguel, Winston Rudder, Nizam Mohammed, and Hema Narinesingh.
The most interesting thing about the committee for me is a composition that excludes clear representation of the Opposition whether in Trinidad or Tobago. But the more substantive matter is, of course, the focus of the committee’s task–constitutional reform. Now, I don’t know that three months is enough time to prepare for the holding of a consultation in June. But the June timeline suggests to me that there is urgency in the Government’s constitutional reform agenda.
First, PM Rowley tells us there will soon be parliamentary closure on the Tobagonian autonomy issue. Secondly, a committee will pave the way for a national consultation on constitutional reform. Thirdly, it does not seem that the consultation will last longer than a month.
Now, there’s going to be a national consultation on constitutional reform, but it does not seem sensible to me that it should take place apart from Tobagonian autonomy. We in Tobago have long known that autonomy for the island will mean consequences for governance in Trinidad as an island and in the country overall. I suspect that Dr Rowley, by closing the text on Tobago, wants to use Tobago as a done-and-dusted reference point in the conversation on the rest of the nation.
I am not sure what Chief Secretary Augustine is saying about what he will be sending (or has already sent) down to Trinidad in terms of either adjustments to the Government’s bills or new thinking on autonomy. But I am sure of at least two things: i) since 2021, there has been new or clarified thinking on autonomy for the island; and ii) whatever changes have been made to the proposals and text must be taken back to the people before the autonomy discussion can be considered closed.
I would be surprised if the Hochoy-headed autonomy committee did not recommend weighty changes to the bills. So I am waiting to see those changes and to participate in the consequent discussions.
In the meantime, here are three proposals which mi bredren Vanus thinks should be taken by the Tobago executive to the people of Tobago and agreed on before being sent down to the Government. In the context of national reform, Rowley’s new committee needs to address them in their briefing note. They speak to the need to upgrade the policymaking capacity of the Government:
(i) An Executive that is a very small minority of the House of Representatives;
(ii) Legislative oversight of the Executive and law-making by a sufficient majority of elected representatives in the House that is large enough to run the oversight committees and is complete with mandates to ensure effective public petitioning of the legislature by all relevant stakeholders, including the diaspora and other foreign stakeholders;
(iii) Introduction of an elected Senate for the primary purpose of ensuring spatial equity in development across the country, but with responsibilities to share legislative law-making and oversight of the Executive, and advise and consent on the scale and structure of the capital expenditures of the country.
An elected Senate would also have to be designed to protect the Judiciary and shield the public service from executive abuse.
Similar reforms are applicable to the THA and other levels where executive authority is exercised. Such reforms would enable full-information, inclusive, and transparent policymaking rather than the limited information practices of the current design.
Dr Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development, and politics in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written thousands of columns for all the major newspapers in the country.
He can be reached at jaywinster@gmail.com