There has been an­oth­er twist in the on­go­ing in­ter­nal dis­pute be­tween Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke.

Au­gus­tine has now chal­lenged Duke to bring a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against him.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on i95.5FM yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine ex­plained that the THA re­sumes on Sep­tem­ber 22, so there are two days be­fore a mo­tion has to be en­tered for de­bate.

“If the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary feels so ag­griev­ed, feels dis­ap­point­ed in my lead­er­ship, I will re­move the par­lia­men­tary whip from over his head and if he so de­sires, let him en­ter a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in me, I am giv­ing him full priv­i­lege to do so, go right ahead Mr Duke, go right ahead,” Au­gus­tine said.

But if the mo­tion fails, there is to be the ul­ti­mate con­se­quence for Duke.

“If he en­ters it and is un­suc­cess­ful, I will de­mand his re­moval im­me­di­ate­ly,” Au­gus­tine added.

The dis­agree­ment start­ed last week when Duke post­ed a video to so­cial me­dia from New York, con­demn­ing the THA ex­ec­u­tive for not help­ing 27 mem­bers of the Rox­bor­ough Folk Group, led by for­mer min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, who were strand­ed there.

Dur­ing a post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing soon af­ter the video cir­cu­lat­ed, Au­gus­tine said he would be re­view­ing Duke’s port­fo­lio.

One day lat­er, Duke re­moved Au­gus­tine, Dr Faith B Yis­rael and Ali­cia Roberts-Pat­ter­son as deputy lead­ers of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots.

But yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine opened up about the mat­ter.

He ex­plained that the group asked for over $700,000 for a trip to the Tri-State (New York, New Jer­sey, and Con­necti­cut) area in the Unit­ed States to car­ry out per­for­mances.

Giv­en fi­nan­cial con­straints, Au­gus­tine it was agreed the THA would pay for the air­fare, which amount­ed to over $300,000. How­ev­er, he said one day af­ter the group ar­rived in New York, he got a call in­di­cat­ing they had nowhere to stay.

Au­gus­tine said it was then arrange­ments were made for some­one to pay a ho­tel bill which the THA was to re­im­burse. This cost was US$9,000.

“That is be­cause you have 27 To­bag­o­ni­ans, they down on their luck, they out, I mean we can’t al­low them to sleep on the streets,” he said.

The Chief Sec­re­tary said a day lat­er, he re­ceived a video from Duke say­ing the group al­so need­ed food and if mon­ey was not sent, the video would be post­ed on­line. He said this was done lat­er that night al­though ef­forts were be­ing made through ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and To­bag­o­ni­ans liv­ing in New York to help.

“And I am say­ing this is crazy,” he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the “goal­post” kept mov­ing.

“Why not can­cel the trip? Why take peo­ple out there to strug­gle?” he asked.

Au­gus­tine said he then con­clud­ed that Duke’s video may have been pre-med­i­tat­ed.

“This led me to be­lieve that the is­sue has to be larg­er than this per­form­ing group, that seemed to me to be a ruse for what seemed to be not just an out-of-pock­et be­hav­iour but a train wreck re­sponse to what is reg­u­lar due dili­gence, reg­u­lar type of gov­er­nance op­er­a­tion,” Au­gus­tine said.

He as­sured that he has no is­sue with Duke.

“I have giv­en him noth­ing but re­spect...I have cho­sen si­lence as a re­sponse to the flat­u­lent nois­es which we have been hear­ing every day com­ing from live videos,” he said.

No grab for pow­er in the PDP

The Chief Sec­re­tary al­so de­nied claims of a pow­er strug­gle with­in the PDP.

“Pow­er strug­gle with­in the par­ty, Mr Duke is on his own where that is con­cerned,” he said.

He ex­plained that when he was re­moved as a deputy, he did not ar­gue and thanked the ex­ec­u­tive and left the meet­ing and sub­se­quent­ly their What­sApp chat.

“So per­haps he is strug­gling with a ghost but not with Far­ley,” he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so con­firmed that he had re­viewed Duke’s role and func­tion and spo­ken with the THA Ex­ec­u­tive on the mat­ter as well.

But while they have dis­cussed strip­ping Duke of his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it will not be done with­out giv­ing Duke an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to their con­cerns. He said there is an­oth­er vir­tu­al meet­ing of the ex­ec­u­tive to­day and Duke is ex­pect­ed to at­tend.

“And sub­se­quent to that meet­ing, the coun­try will know what the po­si­tion of the gov­ern­ment would be,” he said.

The Chief Sec­re­tary al­so took time to rub­bish re­cent ru­mours about him, among them claims of cor­rup­tion.

“I am that con­fi­dent that there are no truths to those claims...I have heard them, I have laughed at them,” he said, threat­en­ing to take any­one to court who make the claims pub­licly.

But notwith­stand­ing the PDP’s in­ter­nal strug­gles, Au­gus­tine as­sured that gov­er­nance re­mains un­af­fect­ed.

“What I wish to as­sure the na­tion this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) is that the pos­tur­ings of the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary have not in any way af­fect­ed the op­er­a­tions of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly,” he said.

How­ev­er, in Rox­bor­ough, the dis­trict rep­re­sent­ed by Duke, there were mixed views on the sit­u­a­tion.

Ben­jamin Fer­gu­son said, “Mr Duke, he very commes­ful (sic), dis­or­gan­ised, he just like Mr (Don­ald) Trump (for­mer US Pres­i­dent) you know, no dif­fer­ent from Mr Trump.”

Dar­ren Jones, from Scar­bor­ough, said the im­passe could have a rip­pling ef­fect.

“It is kind of sur­pris­ing to know that these two guys born and grow in To­ba­go un­der a pow­er strug­gle. Sad­ly to say, it will have an ef­fect on the is­land as a whole, as well as the pop­u­la­tion, be­cause we were ac­tu­al­ly look­ing for­ward for a change and al­so to be rep­re­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment,” he said

“If they can’t work as a team God help us,” Jones added.

Grace Pow­der said while she has been fol­low­ing the con­flict, she is strug­gling to un­der­stand its gen­e­sis.

“I am hear­ing every­thing, I am see­ing every­thing but I don’t un­der­stand it...If some­body could ex­plain it to me, I will be very grate­ful,” she said.

Up to press time, nei­ther Duke nor Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, who led the folk group, could be reached for com­ment re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ments.