Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh

@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try looks on, the pub­lic spat be­tween To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, af­ter Duke re­moved Au­gus­tine as a deputy leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots.

Duke made the de­ci­sion in an emer­gency meet­ing of the PDP on Thurs­day night, hours af­ter Au­gus­tine re­vealed at a press con­fer­ence that he was re­view­ing Duke’s roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

The sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped af­ter both men clashed over how the THA had han­dled fund­ing for a New York tour by the Rox­bor­ough Folk Per­form­ers. Mem­bers of the group were said to be strand­ed with­out mon­ey af­ter they went on a tour which co­in­cid­ed with Labour Day ac­tiv­i­ties in New York.

In a state­ment on the de­ci­sion, Duke an­nounced that Au­gus­tine’s ap­point­ment as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the PDP had been re­voked with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, along with those of Faith B Yis­rael and Ali­cia Roberts-Pa­ter­son.

“The pub­lic is here­by to note that they are now or­di­nary mem­bers of the PDP and should be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly,” the short re­lease not­ed.

Ef­forts to con­tact the feud­ing par­ty col­leagues, Au­gus­tine and Duke, were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day, as they did not an­swer calls or mes­sages. B Yis­rael al­so did not re­turn calls.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the sit­u­a­tion, head of the To­ba­go Cham­ber, Mar­tin George, im­plored Au­gus­tine and Duke to be wary of the path they were now go­ing down.

“Things are boil­ing and we urge cau­tion, and we urge for tem­pers to be cooled, we urge for egos to be re­strained and brought un­der con­trol,” George said.

George even of­fered to me­di­ate the sit­u­a­tion in an at­tempt to find a quick res­o­lu­tion.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the de­vel­op­ing sit­u­a­tion, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath de­scribed it as a con­flict of con­trol be­tween both men.

“It’s a pow­er strug­gle with­in the PDP but it’s not a pow­er strug­gle with­in the THA... Two man rat in one hole, it had to hap­pen,” he said.

He added, how­ev­er, that this mat­ter, “Has noth­ing to do with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the THA and, in fact, what Wat­son Duke would prob­a­bly re­alise is that while he may re­move Far­ley Au­gus­tine as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, which is a non-salary job, he could be re­moved by Far­ley Au­gus­tine as deputy Chief Sec and that is a salaried po­si­tion.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James mean­while said Au­gus­tine and Duke need­ed to find a so­lu­tion and turn around the sit­u­a­tion for the sake of the To­bag­o­ni­ans. If no res­o­lu­tion is put forth, he said To­ba­go could even­tu­al­ly have to re­turn to the polls.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 35 of the THA Act, the po­si­tions of both Chief Sec­re­tary and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary can be re­voked once a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence is passed by as­sem­bly­men.

To­bag­o­ni­ans were yes­ter­day con­tem­plat­ing whether Duke, if he had the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of the oth­er PDP mem­bers, could not move a sim­i­lar mo­tion to re­move Au­gus­tine as Chief Sec­re­tary.

How­ev­er, Dr James said from a THA per­spec­tive, Au­gus­tine can al­so re­move Duke, since he (Au­gus­tine) has both the pow­er to ap­point and re­move him from his po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, he not­ed, “Mr Duke can­not, work­ing from his po­si­tion as the po­lit­i­cal leader of PDP, he can­not out­side of the as­sem­bly and in the ab­sence of hold­ing the po­si­tion of Chief Sec­re­tary...it is not legal­ly pos­si­ble for him to get rid of Mr Au­gus­tine.”

James said he be­lieved it was legal­ly pos­si­ble that both men could use a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence to re­move the oth­er, but he could give no de­fin­i­tive an­swer on that as­pect at the mo­ment.

But po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed does not be­lieve the sit­u­a­tion has to es­ca­late very far and echoed Dr James’ plea for the men to find a so­lu­tion.

He ad­vised the Chief Sec­re­tary to stay the course and main­tain fo­cus. “They have a man­date and a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple of To­ba­go and they should not be side-tracked by pet­ty pol­i­tics,” Mo­hammed said,

To Duke, he pro­posed that he cross the floor and take up a po­si­tion on the op­pos­ing bench.

For­mer Chief Sec­re­tary un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, An­cil Den­nis, mean­while said he had no com­ment on PDP’s bac­cha­nal.

“My fo­cus is on the PNM here in To­ba­go, to en­sure that when­ev­er we are called up­on whether it is four years or two years that we are in a po­si­tion to re­store dig­ni­fied and in­spi­ra­tional lead­er­ship to the is­land of To­ba­go.”

Sev­er­al oth­er in­te­gral mem­bers of the To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal land­scape re­frained from com­ment­ing on the brew­ing sit­u­a­tion when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, in­clud­ing econ­o­mist Vanus James, not­ing they need­ed to be ful­ly ap­praised of the sit­u­a­tion.

The PDP has on­ly been at the helm of the THA for nine months.