Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Wat­son Duke says his par­ty plans to ad­vance a cam­paign for To­ba­go’s leg­isla­tive, eco­nom­ic and ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence.

He said To­ba­go is a part of the uni­tary state of Trinidad and To­ba­go but de­ci­sions are be­ing made for the is­land that were not in keep­ing with the is­land’s cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.

Speak­ing at the Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil’s me­dia brief­ing on Wednes­day, Duke said To­ba­go has a dif­fer­ent his­to­ry from Trinidad and it must be recog­nised. He said there must be equal­i­ty be­tween both is­lands and To­ba­go should be al­lowed to make its own laws.

“The House of As­sem­bly has no pow­er in it. Hence in my years there, all we have passed is mo­tions like lit­tle chil­dren, mo­tion­ing the teacher to go and take a pee, that’s all they do, mo­tion, mo­tion, be­cause it is set out in the House of As­sem­bly Act.

“If a law is to be made the law has to go to Trinidad in the Par­lia­ment but be­fore it gets to the Par­lia­ment it must go to the Ex­ec­u­tive in Trinidad, they will look at it and they will now do green pa­per, white pa­per et cetera, then send it to the Par­lia­ment to be dis­cussed in the Low­er House, then the Up­per House and then it goes to the Pres­i­dent.

“Why is it so dif­fi­cult to make a law for To­ba­go, why is it that Trinidad keep mak­ing laws that does not fit us.”

Duke said To­ba­go should al­so be al­lowed eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bor­row mon­ey from fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions for projects on the is­land. He al­so said To­ba­go should and have its own au­di­tor gen­er­al.

“To­ba­go must gov­ern its own af­fairs, so we are say­ing we want eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence. We must be able to come up with an eco­nom­ic plan and bor­row mon­ey on the open mar­ket as Trinidad will do,” he said.

“No­body could tell Grena­da how much mon­ey to bor­row, no­body can tell Bar­ba­dos how much mon­ey to bor­row, no­body can tell St Vin­cent how much mon­ey to bor­row and cer­tain­ly we in To­ba­go can­not tell Trinidad how much mon­ey to bor­row, all of those de­ci­sions are made in­de­pen­dent of any coun­try or any ad­vice from any coun­try with­in the Caribbean be­cause they have their own rules and plan their own eco­nom­ic sys­tem.”

He said it was time for To­ba­go’s in­de­pen­dence but ex­plained that it was dif­fer­ent from se­ces­sion. He al­so called for To­ba­go to have an in­de­pen­dent ju­di­cia­ry, with pris­on­ers who com­mit crimes on the is­land be­ing al­lowed to serve their sen­tences at the To­ba­go prison.