The main op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day used its num­bers in the Par­lia­ment to pre­vent the gov­ern­ment from push­ing for­ward leg­is­la­tion on the grant­i­ng of au­ton­o­my to To­ba­go.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley had sought to get ap­proval for the read­ing of leg­is­la­tion to amend the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sti­tu­tion “to ac­cord self-gov­ern­ment to To­ba­go and for re­lat­ed mat­ters to be forth­with read a third time and passed” af­ter the claus­es to the leg­is­la­tion had been ap­proved in the com­mit­tee stages.

Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George told leg­is­la­tors that the bill re­quired a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of the 41 mem­ber Par­lia­ment and when the mat­ter was put to the vote, 21 gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tors vot­ed in favour while 16 of the op­po­si­tion mem­bers present vot­ed against the move.

“Ho­n­ourable mem­bers with a di­vi­sion of 21 mem­bers vot­ing for, 16 mem­bers vot­ing against and no ab­sten­tions, the mo­tion for the third read­ing of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment To­ba­go Self Gov­ern­ment Bill 2020 is not ap­proved,” said An­nisette-George to loud ap­plause from the op­po­si­tion bench­es.

The two To­ba­go bills had been on the Or­der Pa­per since 2021 and had al­so been the sub­ject of a joint com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment, with the Leader of the Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, in­di­cat­ing that the bills would come be­fore the com­mit­tee stage where they would be ex­am­ined clause by clause on Mon­day.

How­ev­er, be­fore the process start­ed, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley de­scribed as “pre­pos­ter­ous” the ef­forts of the op­po­si­tion to pre­vent the ex­er­cise from go­ing for­ward based on con­cerns they said had been raised by the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

“Madam Speak­er we have gen­uine con­cerns with this par­tic­u­lar man­ner in which we are con­duct­ing to­day’s busi­ness be­cause the Chief Sec­re­tary is rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns and at the end of it he asks that they don’t pro­ceed fur­ther with this par­tic­u­lar bill be­cause this serves as the com­pan­ion bill to the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment Bill,” op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tor, Sad­dam Ho­sein, seen as the shad­ow at­tor­ney gen­er­al, said.

“So with­out the pas­sage of that first bill … this bill will not be able to stand on its own be­cause you need the con­sti­tu­tion­al ground­ing,” said Ho­sein.

How­ev­er, Row­ley said he was “shocked” that Ho­sein “could so cav­a­lier­ly in­ter­vene in the par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings to play this game.”

“Madam Speak­er, the mat­ter be­fore us is a mat­ter that has been in the pub­lic do­main for years, in this House for years. We last met in this House on a de­bate, we are now in com­mit­tee stage.”

Row­ley re­vealed that he had ear­li­er Row­ley re­vealed that he had ear­li­er re­ceived a What­sApp mes­sage from the THA Chief Sec­re­tary, who is “now in­ter­ven­ing in that mat­ter of­fer­ing eight pages of le­gal {ad­vice). I don’t know who the lawyers are, telling the Par­lia­ment to stop its pro­ceed­ings.”

Row­ley said that the re­quest was be­ing made through Ho­sein “and oth­er per­sons,” who have found an al­ter­na­tive way and things to be done “un­der the rubric of con­sul­ta­tion.

“How did we get here, if not by a se­ries of years of con­sul­ta­tion and as I sit here this minute on my phone I get a What­sApp. The laws of this coun­try pro­vide a mech­a­nism for the Chief Sec­re­tary to com­mu­ni­cate with the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on the mat­ter for To­ba­go.

“Noth­ing has come to me from the Chief Sec­re­tary’s of­fice, but to­day in the Par­lia­ment, one minute be­fore we seat to deal with in a com­mit­tee stage of a joint se­lect com­mit­tee of years of work, this mem­ber (Ho­sein) comes here fa­cil­i­tat­ing this in­ter­ven­tion by a What­sApp by amend­ments be­ing pro­posed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly through its chief sec­re­tary.”

“Madam Speak­er, this is pre­pos­ter­ous and I will have none of it,” Row­ley added.

In the end, the op­po­si­tion vot­ed against the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC –

CMC/pr/ir/2024