RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A five-hour meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has drawn crit­i­cism from Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris who claimed the ses­sion re­flect­ed close align­ment be­tween Au­gus­tine and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). Mor­ris said both par­ties “were joined at the hip.”

The meet­ing, which took place on Tues­day, in­clud­ed Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath and Leader of As­sem­bly Busi­ness Zor­isha Hack­ett. Top­ics dis­cussed in­clud­ed To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my and right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, the ex­pan­sion of the THA’s leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ty, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and bor­der con­trol, un­re­solved land ti­tle is­sues, Town and Coun­try Plan­ning con­cerns, and tourism de­vel­op­ment.

While the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice de­scribed the dis­cus­sions as be­ing held in the na­tion­al in­ter­est to sup­port de­vel­op­ment on both is­lands, Mor­ris ob­ject­ed to Au­gus­tine’s re­port­ed claim that many of To­ba­go’s prob­lems stemmed from ne­glect by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tions.

“I do not ac­cept that no­tion by the Chief Sec­re­tary that To­ba­go was ne­glect­ed by the past ad­min­is­tra­tion,” Mor­ris said. “As a mat­ter of fact, To­ba­go would have re­ceived un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­ment from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, the $1 bil­lion air­port, the in­vest­ment in our brand new Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, fire sta­tion, po­lice sta­tion, and oth­er ma­jor cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment in pub­lic util­i­ties. All these projects were achieved un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

He point­ed to past ef­forts by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to en­gage with To­ba­go’s cur­rent lead­er­ship, adding: “And you will re­call the (for­mer) prime min­is­ter (Dr Kei­th Row­ley) him­self brought key mem­bers of cab­i­net to To­ba­go to sit with this brand new in­ex­pe­ri­enced ad­min­is­tra­tion to dis­cuss their de­vel­op­ment, the gov­ern­ment needs, and how the cen­tral gov­ern­ment can sup­port them.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ris, the tone of that en­gage­ment quick­ly shift­ed.

“But it was this Chief Sec­re­tary who quite dra­mat­i­cal­ly, pub­licly chas­tised the (for­mer) prime min­is­ter and ba­si­cal­ly told him to stay out of To­ba­go’s busi­ness.”

He al­so cit­ed leg­isla­tive ef­forts made by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion: “But even notwith­stand­ing that, this for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so pi­lot­ed two bills in the Par­lia­ment. And those bills, which in­clude ... would have guar­an­teed 6.8 per cent al­lo­ca­tion out of the na­tion­al bud­get, as well as law­mak­ing pow­ers for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.”

Mor­ris ac­cused Au­gus­tine of un­der­min­ing those ef­forts. “It was the Chief Sec­re­tary who col­lud­ed with his UNC friends and he in­struct­ed them to re­ject those bills. And it is for that rea­son why To­ba­go is still with­out the type of au­ton­o­my that it is seek­ing.”

He said he ex­pects the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion to de­liv­er what Au­gus­tine has long re­quest­ed.

“And there­fore, go­ing for­ward, I would ex­pect that every­thing that this Chief Sec­re­tary com­plained about, all the is­sues of au­ton­o­my, land ti­tles, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, etc.—now that he has his friends in of­fice, he will en­sure that what To­ba­go wants, To­ba­go will get.”

In the of­fi­cial state­ment fol­low­ing the meet­ing, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that Au­gus­tine raised sev­er­al is­sues which im­pact­ed on To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment. He re­port­ed­ly at­trib­uted sev­er­al of them to de­ci­sions made un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. Some of these were de­scribed as “low-hang­ing fruits,” or is­sues that could be re­solved through im­me­di­ate col­lab­o­ra­tion.

The state­ment said both par­ties agreed on the need for im­proved co­or­di­na­tion and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the THA and Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to en­sure ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance and ser­vice de­liv­ery on the is­land.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Min­is­ter Padarath, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke, but there was no re­sponse up to yes­ter­day evening.