Dr Win­ford James

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

Last Sun­day, we asked who should speak for To­ba­go in the Sen­ate. Tak­ing our cue from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, we pro­posed two des­ig­nat­ed To­ba­go Sen­a­tors, ap­point­ed through the As­sem­bly, rather than tak­ing two places from the Pres­i­dent’s In­de­pen­dent Bench. The Bud­get de­bate now forces a more im­me­di­ate ques­tion: who is speak­ing for To­ba­go when the mon­ey is be­ing di­vid­ed? Con­sti­tu­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion must be test­ed against the in­ter­ests it ac­tu­al­ly de­fends.

The fig­ures de­serve plain lan­guage. For fis­cal 2027, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter an­nounced $2.756 bil­lion for the THA, rep­re­sent­ing 4.35 per cent of the Na­tion­al Bud­get. Last year’s an­nounced al­lo­ca­tion was $2.96 bil­lion, or five per cent. That is $204 mil­lion less, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.9 per cent, in the As­sem­bly’s own spend­ing en­ve­lope. The sep­a­rate $716.5 mil­lion for cen­tral min­istries should not re­place To­ba­go’s au­thor­i­ty to di­rect those re­sources to­wards its de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties.

To­ba­go MPs Joel Samp­son and David Thomas did ex­press con­cerns; how­ev­er, our crit­i­cism is that those con­cerns were too weak for the scale and con­se­quences of the re­duc­tion. The Guardian’s Oc­to­ber 19 re­port records Samp­son ac­knowl­edg­ing the short­fall and dis­tin­guish­ing cen­tral ex­pen­di­ture from the THA al­lo­ca­tion. That dis­tinc­tion mat­ters. But how does an As­sem­bly ad­vance its de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme with less fund­ing un­der its con­trol? Thomas’s sup­port for the Bud­get makes that ques­tion more press­ing. Where is the de­mand com­men­su­rate with To­ba­go’s loss?

Samp­son’s em­pha­sis on in­vest­ment and on re­duc­tion of de­pen­dence on cen­tral fund­ing re­quires an an­swer too. Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion needs in­vest­ment. An As­sem­bly fac­ing re­duced re­sources can­not trans­form its econ­o­my by mere­ly fol­low­ing the ad­vice to be­come less de­pen­dent. Both MPs must tell To­ba­go what ad­di­tion­al sums they are de­mand­ing, which de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties it would fi­nance, and when an­swers are ex­pect­ed. If a firm de­mand has been made, they must pub­lish it along­side the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse. Ac­knowl­edg­ing an in­jury is not an ad­e­quate sub­sti­tute for press­ing the case for re­dress.

Thomas em­pha­sis­es co­op­er­a­tion and his mem­ber­ship of gov­ern­ment. Wa­ter im­prove­ments, po­lice posts, and fire ser­vices ben­e­fit con­stituents. They are pub­lic ser­vices, how­ev­er, rather than favours that set­tle To­ba­go’s fis­cal claims. An MP can ac­knowl­edge use­ful projects while chal­leng­ing an in­ad­e­quate al­lo­ca­tion. Mem­ber­ship of gov­ern­ment should strength­en To­ba­go’s bar­gain­ing po­si­tion. What has that mem­ber­ship se­cured against this re­duc­tion?

Gail Alexan­der’s Oc­to­ber 17 col­umn re­calls To­bag­o­ni­ans who have served as In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors while ques­tion­ing the con­so­la­tion of­fered by the pro­posed ap­point­ments. Their ser­vice de­serves recog­ni­tion. But pre­vi­ous ap­point­ments do not es­tab­lish a guar­an­teed man­date from, or ac­count­abil­i­ty to, To­ba­go. A dis­tin­guished To­bag­on­ian serv­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly and a Sen­a­tor au­tho­rised to rep­re­sent To­ba­go oc­cu­py dif­fer­ent in­sti­tu­tion­al po­si­tions. The his­tor­i­cal list can­not set­tle the con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion.

Nor can the fa­mil­iar ad­di­tion of cen­tral ex­pen­di­ture to the THA al­lo­ca­tion an­swer the ques­tion of au­ton­o­my. Mon­ey spent on elec­tric­i­ty, wa­ter, polic­ing, or an­oth­er na­tion­al ser­vice in To­ba­go has val­ue. Yet ex­pen­di­ture ben­e­fit­ing To­ba­go is not nec­es­sar­i­ly ex­pen­di­ture di­rect­ed by To­ba­go. Who se­lect­ed the project? Did the As­sem­bly agree on its pri­or­i­ty? Who con­trols its timetable? What hap­pens when the min­istry’s pref­er­ence dif­fers from To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment plan?

That is the lop­sided re­la­tion­ship our au­ton­o­my ar­gu­ment chal­lenges. To­ba­go must fi­nance its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties while de­ci­sive choic­es about ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture re­main in Port-of-Spain. A fair com­par­i­son must ex­am­ine both is­lands’ de­vel­op­ment needs, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and con­trol over re­sources. An­nounc­ing projects in To­ba­go can­not es­tab­lish that To­ba­go’s pri­or­i­ties have de­ter­mined them. When re­cur­rent com­mit­ments must still be met, a small­er As­sem­bly en­ve­lope risks squeez­ing the very in­vest­ment need­ed to trans­form its econ­o­my.

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic health, for ex­am­ple, re­quire ex­pen­di­ture to both is­lands. To­ba­go shares the Re­pub­lic’s oblig­a­tions and ben­e­fits from na­tion­al com­mon in­sti­tu­tions. But those needs can­not be­come an un­ex­plained an­swer to every de­mand from To­ba­go. If com­pet­ing na­tion­al costs are the rea­son for re­duc­ing its al­lo­ca­tion, the cal­cu­la­tion must be pub­lished and the bur­den jus­ti­fied. Where na­tion­al in­sur­ance or risk de­ci­sions af­fect To­ba­go, ev­i­dence of the is­land’s ac­tu­al cir­cum­stances is re­quired rather than treat­ment of the two is­lands as in­ter­change­able.

We have chal­lenged this ac­com­mo­da­tion be­fore. In our DRC se­ries, we re­called Orville Lon­don’s as­sur­ances that he was “not un­com­fort­able” with al­lo­ca­tions. His com­fort did not es­tab­lish their ad­e­qua­cy. Samp­son and Thomas should be­ware of be­com­ing the new Orville Lon­don in that re­gard. Has the To­ba­go PNM some­how stepped back in­to the House through their re­marks? They must re­pu­di­ate the fa­mil­iar ar­gu­ment that To­ba­go must ac­com­mo­date what Port-of-Spain de­cides. Nei­ther par­ty loy­al­ty nor a warmer re­la­tion­ship makes an in­ad­e­quate al­lo­ca­tion ad­e­quate.

Chang­ing the gov­ern­ing par­ty does not by it­self change a sys­tem in which To­ba­go re­peat­ed­ly pe­ti­tions for re­sources while the de­ci­sive choic­es re­main else­where. PNM and UNC ad­min­is­tra­tions should face the same test: ad­e­quate fund­ing, an in­tel­li­gi­ble al­lo­ca­tion for­mu­la, and ef­fec­tive au­thor­i­ty over To­ba­go’s pri­or­i­ties. The As­sem­bly, in turn, must pub­lish its costs, jus­ti­fy its choic­es, and ac­count for its spend­ing. Au­ton­o­my can­not ex­cuse poor ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Our two MPs need not man­u­fac­ture hos­til­i­ty. They must demon­strate that po­lit­i­cal friend­ship pro­tects To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment thrust. Their ac­knowl­edge­ment of dis­ap­point­ment must lead to a de­mand pro­por­tion­ate to the loss; oth­er­wise, their as­sur­ances risk com­fort­ing the Gov­ern­ment more than the peo­ple they rep­re­sent.

So, who is re­al­ly speak­ing for To­ba­go? We will judge by the claims pur­sued, the au­thor­i­ty se­cured, and the re­sults re­port­ed. To­ba­go’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives must take To­ba­go’s pri­or­i­ties to Port-of-Spain with the de­ter­mi­na­tion to have them re­spect­ed. They must nev­er be­come so com­fort­able ex­plain­ing the al­lo­ca­tion that they for­get that the peo­ple ex­pect them to chal­lenge it.

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.