Dr Win­ford James

Max Al­bert and I con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions on the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my ques­tion.

The Silk Cot­ton Sys­tem pro­pos­es a gov­ern­ment root­ed in its peo­ple, with in­sti­tu­tions that make an Ex­ec­u­tive an­swer be­tween elec­tions. An­oth­er se­quence de­serves at­ten­tion: first set­tle To­ba­go’s full au­thor­i­ty over its do­mes­tic af­fairs in the Con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing its mar­itime ju­ris­dic­tion, then re­turn home to de­sign the in­sti­tu­tions that will ex­er­cise it. It is worth test­ing.

But we must get the lan­guage right. For too long To­ba­go’s pow­ers have been de­scribed as a “grant” from the cen­tre. The word de­picts Trinidad giv­ing and To­ba­go re­ceiv­ing, though Par­lia­ment rep­re­sents both is­lands. The num­bers in that Par­lia­ment are plain­ly un­equal; call­ing it a part­ner­ship will not change the votes. We seek a con­sti­tu­tion­al set­tle­ment that recog­nis­es and se­cures To­ba­go’s place in the Re­pub­lic, and vests de­fined pow­ers in its in­sti­tu­tions. Par­lia­ment must en­act that set­tle­ment, but its vote should recog­nise To­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion­al place, not dis­pense a favour.

An om­nibus con­sti­tu­tion­al bill could state To­ba­go’s ter­ri­to­ry, the mat­ters over which To­ba­go may make law and ad­min­is­ter ser­vices, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties re­tained for com­mon na­tion­al gov­ern­ment, and the fi­nan­cial means to per­form those du­ties. It should pro­tect To­ba­go’s au­thor­i­ty against re­moval by an or­di­nary par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, re­quire To­ba­go’s con­sent to changes in its pro­tect­ed pow­ers, and es­tab­lish a fair process for set­tling dis­putes. Ex­ist­ing ser­vices and laws would con­tin­ue un­til To­ba­go can law­ful­ly re­place them. “Full au­ton­o­my” needs con­tent, or it will again in­vite quar­rels.

The sea be­longs in that set­tle­ment. To­ba­go re­quires clear­ly mapped ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­i­ty over the wa­ters on which its fish­eries, reefs, ports, coastal com­mu­ni­ties, and tourism de­pend, with pow­ers and re­sources to gov­ern them. A par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee in 2021 rec­om­mend­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ex­tend­ing eleven nau­ti­cal miles from the low-wa­ter mark while recog­nis­ing that the wa­ters re­main un­der the sov­er­eign­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The text must spec­i­fy the area, To­ba­go’s func­tions, rev­enue and en­force­ment, and the man­ner in which dis­putes would be de­cid­ed. The Re­pub­lic’s in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions would re­main na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. A mar­itime line with­out prac­ti­cal au­thor­i­ty is no set­tle­ment.

The same pre­ci­sion is need­ed for mon­ey. If To­ba­go is an­swer­able for schools, hos­pi­tals, or roads, the fis­cal for­mu­la must pro­vide the means to run them and pub­lish how the cal­cu­la­tion is made. Its own ac­counts must be open to in­de­pen­dent ex­am­i­na­tion. Pop­u­lar au­ton­o­my de­mands that pow­ers do more than move from a min­is­ter in Port-of-Spain to an unchecked Ex­ec­u­tive in Scar­bor­ough. Cit­i­zens must be able to see de­ci­sions, chal­lenge them, and ob­tain an an­swer.

Here his­to­ry of­fers a use­ful method. Act 37 of 1980 es­tab­lished the As­sem­bly with a Chair­man; it did not es­tab­lish the po­lit­i­cal of­fice of Sec­re­tary for each di­vi­sion. Robin­son nev­er­the­less called mem­bers re­spon­si­ble for those di­vi­sions Sec­re­taries, giv­ing an emerg­ing prac­tice a pub­lic iden­ti­ty. Af­ter years of use, the 1996 con­sti­tu­tion­al and leg­isla­tive arrange­ments ex­press­ly pro­vid­ed for a Chief Sec­re­tary and Sec­re­taries. The 1980 Act did re­fer to an ad­min­is­tra­tive Sec­re­tary of the As­sem­bly, which is a dif­fer­ent of­fice. We should tell the sto­ry ac­cu­rate­ly: prac­tice did not be­come law by rep­e­ti­tion, but prac­tice helped show what To­ba­go need­ed law to recog­nise.

Let us ap­ply that method to the Silk Cot­ton idea. Be­fore the con­sti­tu­tion­al bill pass­es, the As­sem­bly can choose one con­se­quen­tial de­vel­op­ment plan or bud­get pri­or­i­ty for a pub­lic tri­al. Pub­lish the rel­e­vant pa­pers, con­vene a fo­rum of res­i­dents and civic or­gan­i­sa­tions, hear ev­i­dence and rec­om­men­da­tions, and have the Ex­ec­u­tive un­der­take to an­swer each sub­stan­tial find­ing in pub­lic. The As­sem­bly can reg­u­late its pro­ceed­ings, and its Ex­ec­u­tive can com­mit it­self to this dis­ci­pline. That tri­al would not cre­ate a sec­ond leg­is­la­ture or a le­gal pow­er to com­pel the pro­duc­tion of every doc­u­ment. It would let To­bag­o­ni­ans judge whether a peo­ple’s cham­ber im­proves a de­ci­sion and whether lead­ers will ac­cept scruti­ny.

Once To­ba­go’s au­thor­i­ty is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly se­cured, To­bag­o­ni­ans should de­sign the in­sti­tu­tions that ex­er­cise it. An open con­ven­tion could in­clude elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, com­mu­ni­ties, or­gan­ised groups, and res­i­dents se­lect­ed by a fair method; it would pub­lish op­tions, record ob­jec­tions, and place a fi­nal de­sign be­fore the As­sem­bly and the To­ba­go elec­torate. We would ad­vo­cate a Pre­mier and elect­ed leg­is­la­ture, a peo­ple’s cham­ber with de­fined rights to ex­am­ine ma­jor plans and re­quire pub­lic an­swers, cit­i­zen pe­ti­tions, and a pub­lic ac­counts com­mit­tee chaired in­de­pen­dent­ly of the Ex­ec­u­tive. The de­tails must emerge from To­ba­go’s de­lib­er­a­tion, while pro­tect­ing rights and elec­tions.

The par­lia­men­tary hur­dle re­mains. In De­cem­ber 2024, the ear­li­er To­ba­go self-gov­ern­ment con­sti­tu­tion­al bill re­ceived 21 votes for and 16 against, short of the re­quired three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty in the House. A new ti­tle would not re­move that re­quire­ment. To­ba­go needs a set­tled text, a pub­lic man­date, and a team to take the mar­itime map, fis­cal for­mu­la, and every dis­put­ed clause to Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion, and Sen­ate. Let each side ex­plain its po­si­tion on the record. The im­bal­ance in num­bers must be made im­pos­si­ble to hide.

The Re­pub­lic may yet choose two Pre­miers, an equal-is­land Sen­ate, and a Pres­i­dent who must have won ma­jori­ties in both is­lands. To­ba­go need not wait for that bar­gain to put its own prin­ci­ple to work.

Robin­son gave Sec­re­taries life in prac­tice be­fore they en­tered law; we can there­fore put a peo­ple’s fo­rum be­fore a re­al de­ci­sion and have the Ex­ec­u­tive an­swer in pub­lic. Let Par­lia­ment there­fore set­tle To­ba­go’s au­thor­i­ty, in­clud­ing its seas, and let To­bag­o­ni­ans write the gov­ern­ing law. The num­bers may be against us in Par­lia­ment, but they must not make To­ba­go’s fu­ture the Par­lia­ment’s to de­sign.

Dr Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­tics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He has al­so writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try.