Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go vot­ers have de­liv­ered a strong man­date to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), which swept all 15 seats in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), leav­ing the leg­is­la­ture with­out an elect­ed op­po­si­tion. In re­sponse, the is­land’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to adopt a more as­sertive over­sight role to help safe­guard ac­count­abil­i­ty and en­sure To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment agen­da re­mains on track.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) con­firmed that the TPP polled 16,240 votes, well ahead of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), which se­cured 10,456, and the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), which re­ceived 181 votes. The new As­sem­bly will op­er­ate with­out an op­po­si­tion pres­ence, rais­ing con­cerns about checks and bal­ances in To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance.

The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce says it in­tends to func­tion as a de fac­to watch­dog by close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the TPP’s cam­paign blue­print. Di­vi­sion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams con­grat­u­lat­ed TPP Po­lit­i­cal Leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his team, de­scrib­ing the re­sult as a clear and de­ci­sive sig­nal from To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Williams said the cham­ber has main­tained a work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the THA through quar­ter­ly meet­ings fo­cused on eco­nom­ic growth, pri­vate-sec­tor de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties, and stressed that this en­gage­ment must now deep­en.

“We know it has been a clean sweep, so we look for­ward to see­ing what the as­sem­bly will be do­ing in terms of ac­ti­vat­ing that blue­print. We al­so want to fur­ther our re­la­tion­ship be­cause we have been work­ing with the THA for the past years, and we want to deep­en that re­la­tion­ship be­cause there is no op­po­si­tion,” Williams said.

“We want to be the ones to keep you in check to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy go­ing for­ward.”

He added that the TPP’s align­ment with To­ba­go’s two Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment could pro­vide sta­bil­i­ty and help at­tract in­vest­ment.

“We will be mark­ing the score­card this time, and the stan­dard will be very high. That is the stan­dard we want through­out,” Williams said.

Williams al­so high­light­ed ma­jor projects such as the new air­port ter­mi­nal and the Mar­riott Ho­tel, not­ing that the cham­ber will work with lo­cal con­trac­tors to en­sure To­ba­go-based firms ben­e­fit from pub­lic-sec­tor projects.

The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed the TPP, say­ing the re­sult in­di­cat­ed that To­bag­o­ni­ans want­ed fur­ther change and had re­ject­ed the of­fer­ings of the PNM and IDA.

TH­TA pres­i­dent Regi­nald McLean said the ab­sence of an op­po­si­tion voice was the on­ly draw­back of the elec­tion out­come and the pri­vate sec­tor may now need to help pro­vide over­sight to en­sure the tourism sec­tor con­tin­ues to grow.

“We all know that, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, four years is not enough to do what you need to do. They now have the man­date with an ad­di­tion­al four years, so hope­ful­ly all that they want­ed to do can be done,” McLean said.

He not­ed that the po­lit­i­cal align­ment be­tween the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the TPP in To­ba­go should re­move long­stand­ing bar­ri­ers to progress.

“That man­date is not a PNM in Trinidad and a TPP in To­ba­go. That man­date is UNC in Trinidad and the TPP work­ing with the UNC, so we do not see any rea­son why we can­not get what we need in To­ba­go and get tourism mov­ing,” he said.

McLean said the as­so­ci­a­tion looks for­ward to work­ing close­ly with the THA while keep­ing Au­gus­tine “on his toes” to en­sure tourism pri­or­i­ties are met. He called for the re-es­tab­lish­ment of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Tourism, up­dates to the Na­tion­al Tourism De­vel­op­ment Act in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, and amend­ments to leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing To­ba­go land.

He urged con­sid­er­a­tion of trans­form­ing To­ba­go in­to a du­ty- and tax-free is­land and called for dis­cus­sions be­tween the THA and the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment on the pro­pos­al.

Mean­while, Williams em­pha­sised that sus­tain­able growth de­pends on a rec­i­p­ro­cal re­la­tion­ship be­tween gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor, with gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment and busi­ness­es re­spond­ing with in­vest­ment, in­no­va­tion and com­pli­ance.

He al­so re­it­er­at­ed the cham­ber’s sup­port for the Au­ton­o­my Bill, stress­ing that greater leg­isla­tive au­thor­i­ty is es­sen­tial for long-term eco­nom­ic plan­ning, pol­i­cy cer­tain­ty and To­ba­go’s over­all de­vel­op­ment.

“That Bill has to pass be­cause we def­i­nite­ly need some au­ton­o­my go­ing for­ward. There are things in To­ba­go that will re­quire that Bill to be en­act­ed,” he said.