Dr Winford James
Max Albert and I continue our discussions on the Tobago autonomy question.
Before we can re-imagine the Republic, perhaps we should first revalue it. For generations, one of the most persistent questions directed at Tobagonians who speak of autonomy has been brutally simple: What does / did Tobago bring to the Union?
Sometimes, it comes with a scoff, as though Tobago was empty-handed when the British joined it with Trinidad, and it has survived through the years through the generosity of a more powerful Trinidad.
That assumption has been repeated for so long that it has acquired the status of economic fact. But is it? Or have we been measuring Tobago through an accounting system created by the very constitutional arrangements we are now imagining?
The Union was formed following the decline of Tobago’s sugar economy. Trinidad was regarded as the stronger economic unit. Administration was progressively centralised. National institutions developed overwhelmingly around the Port-of-Spain centre. Revenues were collected nationally. Major economic decisions were made centrally.
More than a century after 1889, Tobago is still routinely described as dependent. But is this conclusion entirely economic, or isn’t it partly constitutional?
If one island becomes the centre of administration, investment, infrastructure, national accounting and institutional power, while the other is measured by the economic activity around its shores, are we measuring natural economic strength? Or are we measuring the consequences of the arrangements themselves?
Perhaps the Union began, not with a powerful Trinidad and a dependent Tobago, but with an economically distressed Tobago and a framework that made Trinidad the centre of administration, accounting, investment and power. And if the structure itself helped to produce the imbalance, we should be careful not to cite the resulting imbalance as justification for preserving the structure.
This takes us directly to Tobago’s budget. Under the existing arrangements, Tobago’s allocation has long been discussed within the familiar range established under the Act No. 40 framework. But what exactly are we measuring? Tobago’s population? Its needs? The cost of administering the island? Its historical development deficit? Or what Tobago actually contributes to the Union / Republic?
These questions are not quite the same. A formula that asks principally what Tobago costs, without first establishing what Tobago contributes, is not a valuation formula but an allowance.
Tobago is too often treated as an expenditure centre rather than as an asset centre whose contribution has never been fully identified and valued. For more than a century, Tobago has been required to prove its viability using accounts kept under a system that centralised the country’s institutions, revenues and economic power elsewhere.
That is not a neutral test. The question, “What does / did Tobago bring?” must now be answered with the knowledge and instruments of the twenty-first century, not those of the nineteenth. Let us clarify at this point that the Tobago we are referencing is a fictive one plucked from our imaginations.
Modern technology allows us to value what could not be properly measured in 1889. We can map the sea, explore offshore geology, value marine ecosystems, measure carbon, and assess biodiversity, human capital and strategic geography.
We must begin with the sea. Tobago is not merely 116 square miles of visible land. Any serious valuation must consider the marine space surrounding it and the value generated, or potentially generatable, by offshore energy, fisheries, tourism, biodiversity, blue carbon, shipping, research and future ocean industries.
We must be careful. Geographic proximity does not automatically establish legal ownership, and potential resources must not be confused with proven wealth. But caution cannot become an excuse for not asking the question.
What is Tobago’s attributable contribution to the national marine estate? What value arises from resources adjacent to Tobago? Who measures that value? Where is it recorded? And what weight does it carry when the Republic decides how resources, institutions and decision-making power are shared?
Here, we encounter a contradiction. The Republic cannot nationalise Tobago’s value and localise Tobago’s need. When resources generate value, they are national. But when Tobago seeks an allocation, the resources become local. If those assets are national when they generate value, by what logic does Tobago become merely local when the value is distributed?
This does not mean that every resource near Tobago should belong exclusively to Tobago. A Republic must necessarily share its wealth. Trinidad’s resources should benefit Tobago, and Tobago’s resources should benefit Trinidad.
But sharing cannot be conducted by one party who demonstrates miserliness towards the other party.
Before any new autonomy arrangement is settled, Tobago’s full economic balance sheet should be independently prepared. It should value Tobago’s land, marine resources, natural capital, blue-carbon potential, tourism assets, human capital, diaspora capacity, strategic geography and activity historically located elsewhere because of centralisation.
Only then can we intelligently discuss a fair budget formula.
The formula of the future cannot ask only: How much does Tobago need? It must also ask: What does Tobago bring? What has Tobago contributed? What value is attributable to Tobago’s assets? What development has been deferred? And what proportion of the value created should remain under Tobago’s control?
These questions go to the heart of autonomy, for autonomy without fiscal capacity may become little more than the decentralisation of responsibility. A government cannot meaningfully govern if another government continues to determine the economic boundaries within which all of its ambitions must fit. Autonomy financed by an annual allowance from another government is not full autonomy. It is delegated administration with a larger vocabulary.
So before they ask what Tobago brings to the Union, let them first measure Tobago. Measure it properly. Measure what can be seen and what lies beneath and beyond the shore. Measure what Tobago produces, protects, has lost, and could develop. Measure what its people can contribute wherever they live.
Tobago is yet to be (properly) measured. To be continued...
Dr Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development and politics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written thousands of columns for all major newspapers in the country.
