Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al pieces of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion—in­clud­ing the two bills for To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance - will be car­ried in­to the Third Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, which be­gins with a cer­e­mo­ni­al launch on Mon­day.

The fi­nal sit­ting of the Sec­ond Ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment end­ed at 2.45 pm yes­ter­day - ear­li­er than the nor­mal 4.30 pm break time.

“This House is ad­journed sine die,” Leader of Gov­ern­ment’s House Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounced at the end.

Robin­son-Reg­is list­ed bills to be dealt with in the Third ses­sion, in­clud­ing the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Amend­ment (cam­paign fi­nance re­form), a bill to make Siparia and Diego Mar­tin bor­oughs, the “Whis­tle-blow­er” bill, as well as the two To­ba­go bills.

The two bills in­volve amend­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion to ac­cord self-gov­ern­ment to To­ba­go and to re­peal the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act to pro­vide for the pow­ers and func­tions of the To­ba­go Is­land Coun­cil. The bill had been on hold in fi­nal (Com­mit­tee) stage in the Sec­ond ses­sion.

The Sec­ond Ses­sion pro­rogued at mid­night yes­ter­day. Mon­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al launch of the Third Ses­sion be­gins at 1.30 pm.

At yes­ter­day’s sit­ting, UNC MPs grilled Gov­ern­ment on is­sues from util­i­ty and road is­sues to land­slips, sport and HDC mat­ters.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga was asked by UNC’s Rudy In­dars­ingh about an “ab­sence of re­sources” for the Paria Fu­el Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.

De No­bri­ga said, “The in­sin­u­a­tion at the base of the ques­tion is false—there was not ‘an ab­sence of re­sources.’ The Com­mis­sion’s chair­man, how­ev­er, did high­light a need for ad­di­tion­al re­sources to en­sure op­ti­mum op­er­a­tions at the Com­mis­sion’s of­fices.

“In light of that, I’ve been in­formed that sta­tion­ary has been de­liv­ered, the pro­vi­sion of In­ter­net ser­vices has been sort­ed, the in­stal­la­tion of work sta­tions has be­gun, ad­di­tion­al staff is ex­pect­ed to start next week and once all doc­u­ments have been re­ceived for the rest, they will al­so be on­board­ed—and this is be­ing done as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

On In­dars­ingh’s call for as­sur­ance that there would be no fur­ther de­lays to the start of the CoE “based on Gov­ern­ment’s in­com­pe­tence,” De No­bri­ga said, “I can as­sure that this Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to do every­thing in their re­mit to en­sure that the CoE is re­sourced and the Com­mis­sion will con­duct their busi­ness as they see fit.”

On an­oth­er is­sue, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is al­so replied on whether three parcels of land be­long­ing to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va and one at Ibis Av­enue, Cou­va, were for­mal­ly and law­ful­ly leased or sold to any mem­ber of the cur­rent Cab­i­net

Robin­son-Reg­is said, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) has con­duct­ed a search of its in­ter­nal records and can con­firm that no par­cel of its lands along the South­ern Main Road, Cou­va, or at Ibis Av­enue, Cou­va, was for­mal­ly or law­ful­ly leased or sold to any mem­ber of the cur­rent Cab­i­net.”