Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), An­cil Den­nis has asked Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to have Par­lia­ment amend the THA Act, among which would be the pro­vi­sion of 13 seats to en­able fresh elec­tions in To­ba­go.

He has al­so an­nounced that he will call for the res­ig­na­tion of all sec­re­taries in the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil who did not seek re­elec­tion and were re­placed in the THA.

Den­nis made the an­nounce­ment in a state­ment pub­lished on page 8 of to­day’s news­pa­per.

“It is on­ly nat­ur­al that many of you are con­cerned and are seek­ing clar­i­ty re­gard­ing our is­land’s ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he told To­bag­o­ni­ans.

He said that he had been legal­ly ad­vised that the As­sem­bly re­mains dis­solved with the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil con­tin­u­ing to dis­charge its func­tions in the in­ter­im, point­ing to Sec­tion 34 (4) of the THA Act - “The Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil shall con­tin­ue to dis­charge its func­tions dur­ing any pe­ri­od that the As­sem­bly stands dis­solved.”

He said he does not rel­ish the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, adding he would make changes to the com­po­si­tion of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil.

“Notwith­stand­ing what the law says, I am pre­pared to re­quest the res­ig­na­tion of those Sec­re­taries who did not seek re-elec­tion and were there­fore re­placed as as­sem­bly­men. Some of the re­main­ing sec­re­taries in the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil will be as­signed ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lios to fa­cil­i­tate this change. I be­lieve that this is the right and prop­er thing to do in the unique cir­cum­stances which we now find our­selves. And let me al­so as­sure all of you, that the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil will per­form its du­ties with pru­dent re­straint dur­ing this pe­ri­od.”

He as­sured To­ba­go will not be left with­out lead­er­ship at this cru­cial junc­ture, while they seek a prac­ti­cal way for­ward.

“This is con­sis­tent with the arrange­ments of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­tries across the world, to en­sure that the peo­ple are nev­er with­out a gov­ern­ment. The wheels of gov­ern­ment must keep on turn­ing,” Den­nis said.

Den­nis said he does not ex­pect a res­o­lu­tion will be found at the lev­el of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

“There­fore, the so­lu­tion must be a leg­isla­tive one. All of us are aware that there is on­ly one law-mak­ing body in this coun­try, called the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is in this con­text that as Chief Sec­re­tary, I am re­quest­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter en­gage the Par­lia­ment to treat with this sit­u­a­tion, as a mat­ter of ur­gency.”

He not­ed there are two pos­si­ble in­ter­ven­tions from the Par­lia­ment to solve this dead­lock fac­ing the THA, the first be­ing amend­ments to the cur­rent THA Act to fa­cil­i­tate an­oth­er elec­tion with an odd num­ber of seats and the sec­ond be­ing the pas­sage of the To­ba­go Self Gov­ern­ment Bill which is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Par­lia­ment.

“I am of the firm view that the best op­tion is the fastest one as I am sure all of you do not want this sit­u­a­tion to drag on be­yond a rea­son­able time­frame.”

He said To­bag­o­ni­ans can­not be “in­tim­i­dat­ed by the nov­el­ty of this sit­u­a­tion”.

He added: “My coun­ter­part Far­ley Au­gus­tine has sug­gest­ed that the pop­u­lar vote is the most de­mo­c­ra­t­ic op­tion to de­ter­mine who should form the ex­ec­u­tive. While this is in favour of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the law does not pro­vide for this, and it cer­tain­ly does not al­low for us to toss a coin or pull straws. He al­so sug­gest­ed the use of Sec­tion 92 of the THA stand­ing or­ders to break the dead­lock, but sec­tion 9 of the same stand­ing or­ders re­quires the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to de­lib­er­ate and de­cide on this mat­ter. Fur­ther­more, sec­tion 7 of the THA Act states very un­am­bigu­ous­ly, ‘The As­sem­bly­men shall, up­on the swear­ing-in re­ferred to in sec­tion 6, elect a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer to whom the Pres­i­dent shall ad­min­is­ter the oath set out in the Sec­ond Sched­ule’.”

He told To­bag­o­ni­ans that some will try to di­vide them by in­cit­ing forms of dis­tur­bances and sug­gest that the cur­rent po­si­tion is dic­ta­to­r­i­al or un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.

“This pe­ri­od re­quires pa­tience, pa­tri­o­tism, and com­mon sense. There­fore, I ap­peal to every To­bag­on­ian to sup­port and en­gage in law­ful and or­der­ly con­duct dur­ing this un­prece­dent­ed time. Of course, let your voic­es be heard. Af­ter-all, democ­ra­cy is buoyed by dis­cus­sion and I am hope­ful that both sides would en­gage with one an­oth­er re­spect­ful­ly and am­i­ca­bly in the best in­ter­est of this is­land. Now is not a pe­ri­od of con­tro­ver­sy for the As­sem­bly, but a time of change,” he said.

He said he an­tic­i­pates that the process­es to­ward the tran­si­tion will be set­tled and ex­e­cut­ed in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

“In the mean­time, we are re­quired to be the re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens we are known to be as we chart our course to­wards a peace­ful and suc­cess­ful fu­ture. All will be well, in the end, To­ba­go, we will get there,” he said.