Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has again pledged au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go and al­so in­tro­duced a new di­vi­sion to deal with le­gal and in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal af­fairs.

He made the promise and an­nounced the ad­just­ment to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) struc­ture as he was sworn in as Chief Sec­re­tary for a sec­ond term yes­ter­day, af­ter Mon­day’s his­toric 15-0 elec­tion vic­to­ry over the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Af­ter his ex­ec­u­tive was sworn in, Au­gus­tine al­so pledged full ac­count­abil­i­ty to the role he now un­der­takes for an­oth­er four years.

“You have re­turned me to serve again as your Chief Sec­re­tary, not be­cause the work is fin­ished, but be­cause the work is far from done. You have re­turned us be­cause you be­lieve To­ba­go de­serves steady hands, clear eyes, and a gov­ern­ment that lis­tens, acts, and de­liv­ers. And let me say this plain­ly, I do not re­turn tri­umphant, I re­turn ac­count­able,” he told sup­port­ers at the near­by James Park, where he led his team to ad­dress sup­port­ers who had gath­ered there to wit­ness the func­tion on large screen TVs.

He al­so promised the peo­ple of To­ba­go can look for­ward to con­crete mea­sures that will, for the first time, “em­bed di­rect democ­ra­cy in our gov­er­nance mod­el, en­sur­ing that cit­i­zens are not spec­ta­tors in de­ci­sion mak­ing but par­tic­i­pants in it.”

Au­gus­tine again reaf­firmed his pledge to push To­ba­go to­wards au­ton­o­my.

He al­so re­as­sured sup­port­ers that his team will not abuse their 15-dis­trict strength.

“I want you to know that giv­ing us all 15 seats will not re­sult in us abus­ing you, will not re­sult in us be­com­ing elect­ed dic­ta­tors, but will al­low for us to in­tro­duce mea­sures with­out be­ing stymied by those who are an­ti-To­bag­on­ian and will en­sure that To­ba­go sees progress along a tra­jec­to­ry that leads to the great­est lit­tle is­land on the plan­et,” he said.

While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stood proud­ly with the group, Au­gus­tine made sure to re­mind her where To­ba­go stands.

“While I’m sure you un­der­stand that yel­low might be the code in Trinidad, blue is the code in To­ba­go,” he said.

Au­gus­tine and his 14 as­sem­bly­men were ear­li­er sworn in at the 13th in­au­gur­al ses­sion of the As­sem­bly, form­ing a ful­ly To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty-led (TPP) THA ex­ec­u­tive. In all, 15 elect­ed as­sem­bly­men, three coun­cil­lors and a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer were sworn in, tak­ing the as­sem­bly to 19 in to­tal.

Dr Faith Breb­nor was reap­point­ed Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

As­sem­bly­man Niall George was ap­point­ed the new Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer, and Nike­ta Per­cy was ap­point­ed Deputy Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

THA’s for­mer pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, Ab­by Tay­lor, will take on the role of Di­rec­tor for An­tiq­ui­ties.

The three coun­cil­lors were Joseph-Wal­lace, Petal-Ann Roberts and Ack­el Franklyn.

Au­gus­tine said the pro­posed Di­vi­sion of Le­gal Af­fairs and In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Af­fairs will be head­ed by at­tor­ney Joseph-Wal­lace, an at­tor­ney, who will func­tion like the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for the THA and the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment.

He said she had shown a com­mit­ment to jus­tice, ed­u­ca­tion and hu­man re­source de­vel­op­ment dur­ing her ca­reer, not­ing she cur­rent­ly serves as a deputy dean and lec­tur­er in law at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

He promised to an­nounce the full list of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for all sec­re­taries at a me­dia con­fer­ence sched­uled for to­day.

This is the sec­ond time in THA’s his­to­ry that no op­po­si­tion ex­ists.

The first time the THA was with­out a mi­nor­i­ty leader was in 2012, when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) won all 12 seats.

With no op­po­si­tion this time around, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day cau­tioned Au­gus­tine and his team to let con­science be their check and bal­ance.

Ad­dress­ing the as­sem­bly dur­ing the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny, Kan­ga­loo said, “A man­date that re­sults in no op­pos­ing voice in the as­sem­bly is a man­date that has to be ex­er­cised with great care, and with great ma­tu­ri­ty… Let your op­po­si­tion be your con­science. Let your con­sciences lead you to dis­cov­er what it tru­ly means to have of­fered your­selves for pub­lic of­fice.”

“The ab­sence of an op­pos­ing voice in this as­sem­bly is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a cause for alarm. Rather, it is a man­date which calls up­on this as­sem­bly’s mem­bers, in the lan­guage of an­oth­er fa­mous Amer­i­can, this time, a for­mer pres­i­dent, to lead, not by the ex­am­ple of your pow­er, but by the pow­er of your ex­am­ple,” she added.

Kan­ga­loo al­so cau­tioned that with­out guardrails, re­spect can erode, lan­guage can turn tox­ic, and de­ci­sions risk be­com­ing tyran­ni­cal.

Look­ing ahead, the Pres­i­dent en­vi­sioned an as­sem­bly that can be­come an ex­am­ple to the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

She added, “If we are hon­est, To­ba­go has stood in the shad­ow of its big­ger sis­ter, Trinidad. Let the sto­ry of this as­sem­bly be the sto­ry of in­spired lead­er­ship, by which To­ba­go took its big­ger sis­ter’s hand and led Trinidad away from the dan­ger of de­volv­ing in­to a so­ci­ety frac­tured by mis­trust, hos­til­i­ty and di­vi­sion. Let it be a sto­ry in which this as­sem­bly led the peo­ple of To­ba­go in­to a re­vi­talised re­spect for and ad­her­ence to tra­di­tion­al guardrails, added to them those in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act and the Con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing its con­ven­tions, and cre­at­ed, for the whole of To­ba­go, and dis­played to all of Trinidad—a gold­en era of gov­er­nance, guid­ed by shared prin­ci­ples, re­strained by virtue and strength­ened by trust.”

New Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer Niall George al­so pressed this point in his ad­dress yes­ter­day.

George said, “To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my re­mains the most im­por­tant is­sue to help the peo­ple of To­ba­go to face their fu­ture with cer­tain­ty and con­fi­dence. Forty-six years lat­er, our Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, the Ho­n­ourable Mr Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine, with his team of en­thu­si­as­tic as­sem­bly mem­bers, con­sist­ing main­ly of young-blood­ed To­bag­o­ni­ans con­tin­ues fer­vent­ly to cham­pi­on the cause of lib­er­a­tion for the peo­ple of To­ba­go, sup­port­ed and sur­round­ed by the peo­ple of To­ba­go, unit­ed for a just cause, unit­ed to ac­quire strength of pur­pose. De­spite in­di­vid­ual dif­fer­ences, this as­sem­bly is de­ter­mined to pur­sue and win this long­stand­ing strug­gle for au­ton­o­my for the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the peo­ple of To­ba­go en­vis­age a Prime Min­is­ter and a team that is ex­u­ber­ant and will­ing to op­er­ate in the af­fir­ma­tive, as Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment col­lab­o­rates with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to strength­en in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal ties, fos­ter­ing na­tion­al uni­ty to de­sign and pro­mote pol­i­cy align­ment par­al­lel to the de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties of To­ba­go,” he added.

In re­sponse to the call for To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­as­sured the THA that it will gain more au­ton­o­my to­day when the THA Act is amend­ed in Par­lia­ment to in­crease the num­ber of sec­re­taries and quo­rum in the as­sem­bly.

“We plan to work very close­ly with Far­ley and his team so that we can be­gin that long-await­ed process (au­ton­o­my). The last time I was here, I was across there mak­ing a lit­tle speech and at the end of the speech, I said I pray the an­chor (the TPP sym­bol) holds – those were my last words – and the an­chor did hold."

Al­so present at the in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny were Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Min­is­ters Jear­lean John and Bar­ry Padarath, among oth­ers.

NEW TO­BA­GO HOUSE OF AS­SEM­BLY

Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer—Niall George

Chief Sec­re­tary—Mem­ber, Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side Far­ley Au­gus­tine

Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary—Mem­ber, Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan, Dr Faith Breb­nor

Deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer—Mem­ber, Bon Ac­cord/Crown Point, As­sem­bly­man Nike­ta Per­cy

Mem­ber, Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle, As­sem­bly­man Or­lan­do Kerr

Mem­ber, Mt. St. George/Good­wood, As­sem­bly­man Megan Mor­ri­son

Mem­ber, Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle, As­sem­bly­man Nathisha Charles-Pan­tin

Mem­ber, Scar­bor­ough/Mt Grace, As­sem­bly­man Trevor James

Mem­ber, Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah, As­sem­bly­man lan Pol­lard

Mem­ber, Bethes­da/Les Coteaux, As­sem­bly­man Zor­isha Hack­ett

Mem­ber, Ply­mouth/Black Rock, As­sem­bly­man Kern Alex­is

Mem­ber, Buc­coo/Mt. Pleas­ant, As­sem­bly­man Keigon De­noon

Mem­ber, Bethel/New Grange, As­sem­bly­man Dar­ren Hen­ry

Mem­ber, Dar­rel Spring/Whim, As­sem­bly­man Ricky Joe­field

Mem­ber, Lam­beau/Low­lands, As­sem­bly­man Wane Clarke

Mem­ber, Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill, As­sem­bly­man Nigel Taitt

Coun­cil­lors

Ack­el Franklyn

Petal-Ann Roberts

Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace

Le­gal and In­ter-Gov­ern­men­tal Af­fairs Di­vi­sion—Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace

Di­rec­tor for An­tiq­ui­ties—Ab­by Tay­lor