Camille McEach­nie

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) says it may take six months to re­solve the cur­rent con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis in To­ba­go.

The cri­sis was cre­at­ed as the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Act does not ad­dress how to break a dead­lock if a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is not elect­ed.

The PNM and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), which won six seats each in the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tions, met in the THA Cham­ber yes­ter­day and each par­ty had its own nom­i­nee for pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

The PNM pro­posed In­grid Melville while the PDP put for­ward Ju­lian Skeete.

Af­ter the As­sem­bly’s clerk Mer­na McLeod did four polls for the po­si­tion— two by se­cret bal­lot and two via a pub­lic vote—the dead­lock re­mained.

Cit­ing the THA’s Act, as she aban­doned the day’s pro­ceed­ings say­ing that it could go no fur­ther.

“Mem­bers of this house have ex­haust­ed the Stand­ing Or­der 3 of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. As such this process can­not con­tin­ue,” she said.

How­ev­er, PDP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine point­ed to an­oth­er clause in the act, in­di­cat­ing that there was an­oth­er way to pro­ceed.

“Madame clerk I wish to re­spect­ful­ly in­ter­ject and point your at­ten­tion to Stand­ing Or­der 92:1 which in­di­cates that where the Stand­ing Or­ders do not give a clear pro­vi­sion for any­thing, the As­sem­bly’s Stand­ing Or­ders may re­vert to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Act.”

He sug­gest­ed cast­ing lots.

How­ev­er, the clerk was not pre­pared to en­ter­tain Far­ley’s sug­ges­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the act, if no pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is elect­ed, the As­sem­bly’s leg­isla­tive can­not car­ry out its func­tions. It is the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to choose a Chief Sec­re­tary, who in turn choos­es Sec­re­taries and As­sis­tant Sec­re­taries. The Sec­re­taries form the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil which makes pol­i­cy de­ci­sions and dis­trib­utes the is­land’s re­sources.

Clerk of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Merna McLeod during the voting process for the election of a THA Presiding Officer in the THA Assembly Chamber, Scarborough, yesterday.

Office of the Chief Secretary

PNM To­ba­go hop­ing for res­o­lu­tion with­in six months

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the meet­ing in the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture build­ing on Jern­ing­ham Street, Scar­bor­ough, PNM-elect­ed Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis said the mat­ter can­not be re­solved right away.

“I will hope that it is with­in six months, but I re­al­ly can not give a spe­cif­ic time­frame be­cause it is not up to me.”

Ques­tioned on how To­ba­go will be gov­erned un­der the cir­cum­stances, the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said the act ad­dress­es the mat­ter.

“It (act) says that the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil con­tin­ues to func­tion in a sit­u­a­tion where the House is dis­solved. As it is now, the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil will com­prise of the Chief Sec­re­tary, Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary and not more than sev­en mem­bers of the As­sem­bly.”

Re­mind­ed that some of the cur­rent Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil mem­bers were re­ject­ed at the polls, Den­nis said it did not mat­ter.

“The ad­vice so far is that those per­sons can con­tin­ue to func­tion as Sec­re­taries be­cause they were in dual ca­pac­i­ties - Coun­cil­lors and Sec­re­taries and As­sem­bly­men and Sec­re­taries.”

He said the on­ly way to re­solve the mat­ter may be to change the THA’s laws in Par­lia­ment.

“The law­mak­ers of this coun­try must move quick­ly and treat with this. I even rec­om­mend that we do not go back to the polls with an odd num­ber of seats. The on­ly way out of this is to change the leg­isla­tive arrange­ments and I sus­pect that it will lead us back to the polls,” Den­nis said.

He al­so toyed with the idea that there could be “mi­nor” ad­just­ments to the THA Act to re­solve the is­sue.

PDP to write Clerk of THA

The PDP ad­dressed the me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter. They said that “un­like the PNM”, the PDP wants the mat­ter re­solved.

Au­gus­tine ac­cused the PNM of us­ing “grey ar­eas in the law to hold on to pow­er.”

He said the PDP wants the mat­ter ad­dressed “quick­ly, with­in a week to two weeks.”

He said the par­ty will send a let­ter to the Clerk of the House to have her re­con­vene the As­sem­bly to elect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer. He said the par­ty is al­so ready to go to court on this mat­ter.

On the is­sue of the ex­ist­ing Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil re­main­ing in of­fice in­def­i­nite­ly, he said that was not ac­cept­able.