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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Charles, James to PM?Kamla: Timing not right for Tobago?bill

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20130112

Af­ter 123 years, the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment are plac­ing To­ba­go on free­dom road.These were the words of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing her state­ment in the Par­lia­ment last Mon­day.

She an­nounced her Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to lay an amend­ment to The Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go) Bill, 2013) and at a lat­er stage, an am­mend­ment to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act.

The pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment was rev­o­lu­tion­ary and will amend a num­ber of very im­por­tant sec­tions in the Con­sti­tu­tion, the PM added.If passed, the bill will en­hance the leg­isla­tive and ex­ec­u­tive pow­ers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) there­by pro­mot­ing the in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment of To­ba­go.

The bill would al­ter Sec­tions 5, 53, 54 and 61 of the Con­sti­tu­tion and re­quires a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of three-fourths of all mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and two-thirds of all the mem­bers of the Sen­ate to be passed.But, the tim­ing of her move to lay the bill in Par­lia­ment is be­ing ques­tioned. The THA elec­tion is sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 21 and the de­bate on the bill is ex­pect­ed to start on Wednes­day.

The Sun­day Guardian spoke to Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Plat­form of Truth, Ho­choy Charles who chas­tised the PM and her Gov­ern­ment for want­i­ng to in­ter­fere in To­ba­go's af­fairs at the peak of an elec­tion.Charles said To­ba­go should be able to make its own de­ci­sions for its fu­ture, just as Trinidad does for it­self.Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er, Dr Win­ford James said the tim­ing and man­ner of in­tro­duc­ing the bill were quite clear­ly ill-ad­vised and re­flect­ed very poor judg­ment.

Charles:Vul­gar­ism at its high­est

Any­one who in­tro­duces a bill in the Par­lia­ment while an elec­tion is in progress is "in­sane."Charles, in an in­ter­view on Fri­day said, "It is ridicu­lous and ab­surd for the Prime Min­is­ter to car­ry bills in the Par­lia­ment to dis­cuss To­ba­go fur­ther while an elec­tion is tak­ing place on the ground when no­body has any time to pay at­ten­tion to it."It is a dis­grace and vul­gar to do that."

He said the elec­tion was one of the most se­ri­ous elec­tions To­ba­go will ever face and no one knows what was con­tained in the bill.He said, "So while we are en­gaged in a se­ri­ous ex­er­cise of an elec­tion, you are now de­bat­ing their fu­ture in the Par­lia­ment to pass a law and we don't know what it con­tains."And you don't think it is vul­gar­ism?

"Any­body who does that is in­sane."He said while the is­land was in elec­tion mode, the Gov­ern­ment, who they were try­ing to fight to get pow­er "to fix our busi­ness" was at­tempt­ing to change To­ba­go's sta­tus and its re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad.Charles said, "Tell me some­thing, if that had hap­pened to you in Trinidad while an elec­tion was tak­ing place...you see what hap­pened to Sec­tion 34?

"While we are cel­e­brat­ing In­de­pen­dence some­body moved swift­ly and went and pro­claim Sec­tion 34 and put us in trou­ble."This is not a mat­ter for you all to de­cide in Trinidad, sor­ry if I put it this way."It is not a mat­ter for the Gov­ern­ment to de­cide."To­ba­go must de­cide how To­ba­go must be gov­erned, just as you in Trinidad must de­cide how Trinidad must be gov­erned."This is vul­gar­ism at its high­est."It is vul­gar! Un­ac­cept­able!"

James: PM want­ed TOP­to get an ad­van­tage

She could have wait­ed to in­tro­duce the bill but Per­sad-Bisses­sar used the po­lit­i­cal plat­form to give the TOP a push since the par­ty is part of her Gov­ern­ment, James said."Why couldn't she wait un­til af­ter? It's be­cause she want­ed the TOP to get an ad­van­tage."I think it is clear. She could have wait­ed but she want­ed to go on the plat­form and say look, this is what I am go­ing to do now I am as­so­ci­at­ed with the TOP and this is what we are go­ing to of­fer."

Dur­ing her state­ment, the PM said the bill would be de­bat­ed on Wednes­day and would be re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee for fur­ther de­lib­er­a­tions and con­sul­ta­tions.On this move, James said, "She seemed to be say­ing that in or­der to al­lay fears that the thing will be rushed...it is not go­ing to be rushed be­cause we are go­ing to have a JSC con­sid­er it. So this thing will not be done...a vote will not be tak­en be­fore the 16 or not dur­ing the week."

He said the PM gave the im­pres­sion that it was go­ing to be rushed when she spoke on the TOP plat­form and said the bill would be laid on Jan­u­ary 7 and de­bat­ed on the 16."Peo­ple rea­son­ably con­clud­ed that it will be rushed and in re­ac­tion to peo­ple to mak­ing that charge she said now we are go­ing to have a JSC so it will go on be­yond Jan­u­ary 21."

How­ev­er, he said that was noth­ing out of the or­di­nary. What was im­por­tant was the qual­i­ty of the bill. He said more mon­ey will not make To­ba­go more au­tonomous.James said, "What makes a peo­ple au­tonomous?"Is it self-gov­ern­ment?"There are ar­eas of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that they must have. When you look at the list, there are ar­eas of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that the THA doesn't have such as ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, ports and wharves, air and sea trans­porta­tion.

He said those were in the na­tion­al or con­cur­rent list and were es­sen­tial­ly un­der Cab­i­net con­trol.

Who de­ter­mines the­con­tent of the bill?James said To­bag­o­ni­ans should have been en­gaged in the con­sul­ta­tions held by the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to con­duct con­sul­ta­tions on the Green Pa­per. He said, "If you are talk­ing about a bill on To­ba­go, then To­bag­o­ni­ans should be able to take part in the con­sul­ta­tions."Who de­ter­mines the con­tent of the bill?"Is it the peo­ple of To­ba­go?

"It doesn't seem so."He said the con­sti­tu­tion re­form was promised on the plat­form but the lay­ing of the leg­is­la­tions came at a fun­ny time.Ac­cord­ing to him, it came af­ter the THA elec­tion date was set and there­fore it fell with­in the cam­paign pe­ri­od. He said the PM was able to promise that she would "do this and do that."

"Now that must give the im­pres­sion that you are favour­ing the par­ty."What she did was to un­du­ly politi­cise...in the sense that she did it in the con­tect of as­sist­ing the TOP rather than To­ba­go and so, the tim­ing and the man­ner were quite clear­ly ill-ad­vised and re­flect­ed very poor judg­ment."You don't treat weighty mat­ters like that in the way that she did," he said.

Chap­ter 11A

In­ter­nal Self-Gov­ern­ment of To­ba­go

141A.

(1) There shall be a Leg­is­la­ture of To­ba­go which shall con­sist of the Pres­i­dent and a House of As­sem­bly to be called "the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly."

(2) The As­sem­bly shall con­sist of a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer and such oth­er mem­bers qual­i­fied and ap­point­ed in such man­ner and hold­ing of­fice up­on such terms and con­di­tions as may be pre­scribed.

(3) Sub­ject to this Con­sti­tu­tion, the Leg­is­la­ture of To­ba­go may make laws for the peace, or­der and good gov­ern­ment of To­ba­go.

(4) The pow­er of the Leg­is­la­ture of To­ba­go to make laws for To­ba­go shall, ex­cept where oth­er­wise au­tho­rised by statute, be ex­er­cised by bills passed by the As­sem­bly and as­sent­ed to by the Pres­i­dent, and bills so passed and as­sent­ed to shall be styled "As­sem­bly Laws."

(5) When a bill passed by the As­sem­bly is pre­sent­ed to the Pres­i­dent for as­sent, he shall sig­ni­fy that he as­sents or that he with­holds as­sent.

(6) A bill passed by the As­sem­bly shall not be­come law un­less it has been du­ly passed and as­sent­ed to in ac­cor­dance with this Con­sti­tu­tion.

(7) A bill passed by the As­sem­bly may be as­sent­ed to dur­ing the pe­ri­od oc­cur­ring be­tween the end of one ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture of To­ba­go and the be­gin­ning of the next or at any sub­se­quent time dur­ing the life of that Leg­is­la­ture.


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