Hours be­fore new To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine was sworn in yes­ter­day, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal called on the new team to en­sure there is ac­count­abil­i­ty and an au­dit in­to To­ba­go’s Af­fairs.

Mooni­lal warned the new team that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had al­ready start­ed en­gag­ing in spite and mal­ice, judg­ing by the PNM’s re­ac­tion to the THA’s call for the re­open­ing of To­ba­go’s beach­es.

“The PNM has im­me­di­ate­ly em­barked up­on and con­tin­ued that cam­paign of ar­ro­gance and high hand­ed­ness which led to their de­feat on Mon­day last. If they knew that the THA, with its over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty, be­lieves that the beach­es should be opened, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment should sit around the ta­ble with the new THA Chief Sec­re­tary to de­ter­mine pol­i­cy,” Mooni­lal said.

He added, “The law al­lows the THA to de­ter­mine pol­i­cy and there­fore, the THA ought to sit with Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and dis­cuss. The Chief Sec­re­tary can sit down in a Cab­i­net meet­ing if there is a mat­ter to dis­cuss about To­ba­go be­cause the law al­lows for that.”

He al­so said the con­tin­ued clo­sure of beach­es in­volves the liveli­hoods of the peo­ple of To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly those on the west­ern side of the is­land.

“Let’s dis­cuss to see if we can have the beach­es open in a grad­ual, su­per­vised and man­aged man­ner. I want to call on the PNM to stand down from this con­tin­u­ing ab­surd in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty and ar­ro­gance and di­a­logue with the new THA to en­sure that the will of peo­ple is ex­pressed and done with­in the con­fines of Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions,” he added.

If they fail to do this, Mooni­lal said, “the PNM Gov­ern­ment was de­feat­ing and un­der­min­ing the THA Act it­self.”

How­ev­er, at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram yes­ter­day said based on the THA Act, con­trol of beach­es may not fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the THA.

“At this time, beach­es are closed to the pub­lic un­der the Pub­lic Health (2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus) Reg­u­la­tions 2021, un­der Le­gal No­tice 275. These Reg­u­la­tions are made by the Min­is­ter of Health un­der sec­tion 105 of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance and con­firmed by Her Ex­cel­len­cy, the Pres­i­dent, un­der sec­tion 167. Reg­u­la­tion 4 ex­press­ly states to con­trol and pre­vent the spread of the coro­n­avirus, it shall be an of­fence for any per­son to be found at or on a beach,” Rati­ram said.

He added, “So whilst the clo­sure of beach­es af­fects tourism, the ra­tio­nale for the clo­sure isn’t one re­gard­ing tourism, it is one re­gard­ing health.”