Dr Win­ford James

Max Al­bert and I con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions on the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my Ques­tion.

Last week, To­ba­go’s two par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Joel Samp­son and David Thomas, vot­ed in sup­port of a bud­get that re­duced To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion.

As a re­sult, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s al­lo­ca­tion de­clined from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.9 bil­lion to $2.738 bil­lion. Its share of the na­tion­al bud­get fell from five per cent to 4.35 per cent, while its de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tion was re­duced from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $201 mil­lion to $150 mil­lion. These re­duc­tions are trou­bling at a time when To­ba­go is seek­ing greater au­ton­o­my, de­vel­op­ment, and ca­pac­i­ty to man­age its af­fairs.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine protest­ed the al­lo­ca­tion. And right­ly so. How can To­ba­go be ex­pect­ed to as­sume greater de­vel­op­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties while re­ceiv­ing few­er re­sources to dis­charge them? Yet, when the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill came be­fore Par­lia­ment, Samp­son and Thomas vot­ed YES.

The Op­po­si­tion PNM called for a di­vi­sion, plac­ing the votes of mem­bers on the par­lia­men­tary record. The Bill passed by 28 votes to 12, with­out a sin­gle ab­sten­tion. The PNM sub­se­quent­ly poured scorn on the To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tives for sup­port­ing a bud­get that had pro­voked dis­sat­is­fac­tion in To­ba­go.

There is an irony here. The PNM, whose record on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my and fi­nanc­ing re­mains open to crit­i­cism, op­posed the bud­get, while To­ba­go’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives sup­port­ed it. We are not about to con­fer up­on the PNM the ti­tle of To­ba­go’s de­fend­er. But nei­ther should its his­tor­i­cal record pre­vent us from ac­knowl­edg­ing the le­git­i­ma­cy of its ob­jec­tion to the re­duced al­lo­ca­tion.

Our con­cern is not with the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal tri­umph. It is with To­ba­go’s ap­par­ent par­lia­men­tary sur­ren­der.

Were Samp­son and Thomas con­sult­ed be­fore the al­lo­ca­tion was de­ter­mined? Did they know that To­ba­go would re­ceive less? Did they ob­ject? Were rep­re­sen­ta­tions made to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance? And if con­sul­ta­tions did oc­cur, how did they pro­duce a re­sult that the Chief Sec­re­tary him­self found un­ac­cept­able?

These ques­tions go to the heart of po­lit­i­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty.

We an­tic­i­pate the ar­gu­ment that vot­ing against the na­tion­al bud­get would have amount­ed to vot­ing against the fi­nanc­ing of es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vices. But that ar­gu­ment con­fus­es op­po­si­tion to a par­tic­u­lar fi­nan­cial de­ci­sion with op­po­si­tion to the ma­chin­ery of gov­ern­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment pos­sessed suf­fi­cient par­lia­men­tary strength to pass the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill with­out the votes of To­ba­go’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The lat­ter could there­fore have reg­is­tered their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with­out de­feat­ing the Gov­ern­ment.

They could have ab­stained.

Such a de­ci­sion would have com­mu­ni­cat­ed that while they were un­will­ing to ob­struct the Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nan­cial pro­gramme, they were equal­ly un­will­ing to en­dorse To­ba­go’s re­duced al­lo­ca­tion. It would have been a pow­er­ful ex­pres­sion of par­lia­men­tary in­de­pen­dence.

In­stead, they vot­ed YES. And To­ba­go is en­ti­tled to ask why.

An­oth­er dif­fi­cul­ty aris­es. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has sought to jus­ti­fy To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial treat­ment by point­ing to ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture un­der­tak­en on the is­land by cen­tral gov­ern­ment min­istries. But ex­pen­di­ture in To­ba­go is not nec­es­sar­i­ly ex­pen­di­ture con­trolled by To­ba­go.

This dis­tinc­tion is fun­da­men­tal to the au­ton­o­my ques­tion.

A project fi­nanced and ad­min­is­tered by a cen­tral min­istry may ben­e­fit To­ba­go, but it does not nec­es­sar­i­ly en­large the au­thor­i­ty of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to de­ter­mine its own de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties. Nor can such ex­pen­di­ture au­to­mat­i­cal­ly sub­sti­tute for the fi­nan­cial re­sources nec­es­sary to dis­charge the As­sem­bly’s statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Au­ton­o­my is not sim­ply about how much mon­ey is spent in To­ba­go. It is about who de­ter­mines the pri­or­i­ties, who con­trols the re­sources, and who is ac­count­able to the peo­ple for their use.

The Gov­ern­ment can­not con­vinc­ing­ly pro­claim sup­port for greater To­ba­go au­ton­o­my while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly re­duc­ing the As­sem­bly’s di­rect fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty and pre­sent­ing cen­tral­ly con­trolled ex­pen­di­ture as ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion.

And what of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment?

We wel­come co­op­er­a­tion. To­ba­go can­not de­vel­op through per­pet­u­al po­lit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty. But co­op­er­a­tion must nev­er be­come sub­or­di­na­tion. Po­lit­i­cal friend­ship can­not re­quire To­ba­go’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives to aban­don their in­de­pen­dent judge­ment or mute their ob­jec­tions when the is­land’s in­ter­ests are ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed.

Sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment is not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent­ing To­ba­go ef­fec­tive­ly.

The Chief Sec­re­tary’s protest and the af­fir­ma­tive votes of the is­land’s par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives re­veal an ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion that de­mands ex­pla­na­tion. Are To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal lead­ers speak­ing with one voice on the is­land’s fi­nan­cial re­quire­ments? If not, who is ar­tic­u­lat­ing the po­si­tion of the peo­ple of To­ba­go?

Per­haps as­sur­ances of sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing were giv­en? Per­haps Samp­son and Thomas be­lieve that the Gov­ern­ment’s wider ex­pen­di­ture pro­gramme ad­e­quate­ly com­pen­sates for the re­duced al­lo­ca­tion? Per­haps Kam­la and Far­ley agreed that the pro­vi­sions in the THA Act re­gard­ing rais­ing de­vel­op­ment funds for To­ba­go will be in­voked com­ple­men­tar­i­ly? Per­haps oth­er de­vel­op­men­tal com­mit­ments were se­cured?.

If so, let them ex­plain.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tion car­ries an oblig­a­tion to ac­count for de­ci­sions, es­pe­cial­ly when those de­ci­sions ap­pear in­con­sis­tent with the ex­pressed in­ter­ests of the peo­ple.

The par­lia­men­tary di­vi­sion set­tled the vote. It did not set­tle the ques­tion of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, how­ev­er. To­ba­go asked for the re­sources to do more. The Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed less. The Chief Sec­re­tary protest­ed. Samp­son and Thomas vot­ed YES.

And so we are left with a ques­tion that nei­ther po­lit­i­cal friend­ship nor par­lia­men­tary arith­metic can sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly an­swer: When Samp­son and Thomas said YES to LESS, what ex­act­ly did To­ba­go gain?

The PNM may have en­joyed its par­lia­men­tary mo­ment. Its crit­i­cism, how­ev­er, should not ob­scure the larg­er con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion. To­ba­go’s de­mand for au­ton­o­my can­not de­pend up­on the good­will of whichev­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty hap­pens to oc­cu­py the Trea­sury bench­es.

That de­mand rests up­on the prin­ci­ple that To­ba­go must pos­sess mean­ing­ful au­thor­i­ty and ad­e­quate re­sources to gov­ern its own af­fairs with­in the Re­pub­lic.

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.