The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) will meet in a spe­cial sit­ting on Thurs­day to de­bate the pro­posed pro­vi­sions to re­vamp the re­la­tion­ship be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad. THA Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don said con­trary to the sub­mis­sion of some crit­ics, the as­sem­bly would be con­sid­er­ing two sep­a­rate bills pre­sent­ed by the THA-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee. They are "An Act to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion to pro­vide the en­trench­ment of cer­tain pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and re­lat­ed mat­ters," along with "An Act to re­peal and re­place the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act Chap­ter 25.03, to pro­vide for the re-es­tab­lish­ment of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, to pre­scribe its pow­ers and func­tions and re­lat­ed mat­ters."

The doc­u­ments were laid at the Sep­tem­ber ple­nary sit­ting of the House of As­sem­bly. Lon­don stressed that the acts rep­re­sent­ed the views and rec­om­men­da­tions of the widest cross-sec­tion of To­bag­o­ni­ans and he hoped the up­com­ing de­bate would not be dom­i­nat­ed by po­lit­i­cal par­ti­san­ship. The pro­posed amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion and the THA Act would give the as­sem­bly the "pow­er to make laws for the peace, or­der and good gov­er­nance of To­ba­go." The as­sem­bly would al­so be re­spon­si­ble for all func­tions re­lat­ing to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of To­ba­go, ex­cept for the 11 func­tions re­tained by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

The con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments pro­posed that "for any fi­nan­cial year, To­ba­go's share of the na­tion­al bud­get should be no less than eight per cent. The is­land of To­ba­go is re­de­fined ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion and there are fur­ther pro­pos­als re­lat­ed to the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of per­sons who wish to qual­i­fy both as elec­tors and can­di­dates in a THA elec­tion. It is al­so pro­posed that the "as­sem­bly shall have the au­thor­i­ty to bor­row both on the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture." The spe­cial sit­ting on Thurs­day be­gins at 10 am and there should be a packed gallery for what some ob­servers con­sid­er as the most im­por­tant de­bate in the his­to­ry of the as­sem­bly.