JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 14, 2025

THA not mandated, obligated to heed advice from AG– Augustine

by

1306 days ago
20211215
Chief Secretary Farley Augustine

Chief Secretary Farley Augustine

VINDRA GOPAUL-BOODAN

An­na Lisa Paul

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says they are not man­dat­ed or ob­lig­at­ed to heed any ad­vice of­fered by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi.

Ap­pear­ing at his first THA post-coun­cil meet­ing on Wednes­day, he said, “The THA does not an­swer to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.”

“The THA is a se­mi-au­tonomous body and we def­i­nite­ly do not an­swer to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.”

Dis­miss­ing the ad­vice con­tained in Al-Rawi’s two let­ters which he claimed on­ly ar­rived on his desk yes­ter­day morn­ing, Au­gus­tine said the AG had some an­swer­ing of his own to do.

He said, “I will add that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al per­haps, is not the best per­son to give ad­vice on con­flicts of in­ter­est, giv­en that he is part of a gov­ern­ment that is pay­ing his fam­i­ly hand­some­ly, mul­ti­ple mil­lions in rental.”

“Ho­choy Charles? Yes I’ll take some ad­vice from Ho­choy Charles. He is To­bag­on­ian and by right, can give me or any­body from To­ba­go ad­vice. The AG? Not so much.”

Charles is al­so a for­mer THA chief sec­re­tary.

Re­gard­ing pos­si­ble breach­es that may have oc­curred fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke as the THA’s Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, Au­gus­tine said that mat­ter will be of­fi­cial­ly re­solved by the end of this month.

He said, “A Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary is ac­tu­al­ly elect­ed by the House.”

In­di­cat­ing this was in or­der, he added, “The Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary has al­ready in­di­cat­ed by way of a res­ig­na­tion let­ter to the PSA that ef­fec­tive at the end of this cal­en­dar year, he will no longer be with the PSA. I be­lieve that that is suf­fi­cient time to al­low the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary to sev­er ties with the PSA and tran­si­tion in­to ad­di­tion­al roles of the ex­ec­u­tive of the THA.”

Duke, who was elect­ed to head the PSA in 2009, has since ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion from the union and it will be­come ef­fec­tive on De­cem­ber 31.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored