ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber is urg­ing the new­ly in­stalled Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er re­in­stat­ing a Min­istry of To­ba­go Af­fairs, fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

Head of the Cham­ber, Mar­tin George, says a ded­i­cat­ed min­istry would cre­ate an ef­fi­cient chan­nel for com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

Be­tween 2010 and 2015, the Min­istry of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment op­er­at­ed un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment led by PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It sought to strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the THA, with a fo­cus on To­ba­go’s unique de­vel­op­ment needs. Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin served as the first min­is­ter from May 2010 to June 2012, fol­lowed by Del­mon Bak­er from June 2012 un­til Sep­tem­ber 2015. The min­istry was dis­solved af­ter the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, which brought the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­to of­fice.

“We of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber would like to say, how­ev­er, that it might be im­por­tant for this new gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing or re­in­stat­ing a Min­is­ter of To­ba­go Af­fairs who would be the main li­ai­son and con­duit be­tween the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the THA for any such mat­ters,” George said in a video state­ment sent to the me­dia to­day.

“The Prime Min­is­ter will not al­ways be per­son­al­ly avail­able to meet with the lead­ers in To­ba­go, or the busi­ness sec­tor, or the in­ter­est groups in To­ba­go,” he point­ed out. “But if you have a Min­is­ter of To­ba­go Af­fairs who is part of the Cab­i­net and who is part of the in­ner work­ings of the gov­ern­ment, that per­son can then now be the li­ai­son per­son be­tween the THA and all the in­ter­est groups in To­ba­go.”

George be­lieves this would lead to “a much smoother flow of in­for­ma­tion” and im­proved out­comes for is­sues that mat­ter to To­bag­o­ni­ans.

He al­so de­fend­ed the re­cent meet­ing be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Sec­re­tary, de­scrib­ing it as nei­ther un­usu­al nor po­lit­i­cal.

“Sec­tion 31 of the THA Act man­dates that there shall be reg­u­lar meet­ings be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Sec­re­tary, so there’s noth­ing sin­is­ter … It is set out and laid out specif­i­cal­ly in Sec­tion 31 … Sec­tion 32 al­so man­dates a re­port­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Chief Sec­re­tary and the Prime Min­is­ter,” he ex­plained.

George used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to again call for the re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act, which he ar­gues con­tin­ues to block To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment.

“We have to re­mem­ber, Trinidad and To­ba­go is in a se­vere for­eign ex­change cri­sis. This Act has sti­fled and crip­pled all di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment in­to To­ba­go since the year 2008. There’s no good rea­son what­so­ev­er for it to re­main on the books,” he as­sert­ed.

He said re­peal­ing the Act would al­low To­ba­go to at­tract in­vest­ment and help ease the na­tion­al forex cri­sis.

George al­so ex­tend­ed an open in­vi­ta­tion to PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar to meet with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing her next vis­it to To­ba­go.