In this space one week ago, un­der the head­line, ‘Would Trinidad be bet­ter off in­de­pen­dent of To­ba­go?’ this col­umn es­ti­mat­ed that val­ue of the trans­fers from Trinidad to To­ba­go in the 2025 fis­cal year would be $4.5 bil­lion, while cit­ing a pro­jec­tion from lo­cal econ­o­mist, Dr Vanus James, that the To­ba­go econ­o­my could gen­er­ate about $500 mil­lion in tax­es.

“This is be­cause the econ­o­my now pro­duces about $1.66 bil­lion, if we go by the fig­ures re­cent­ly pub­lished by chief sec­re­tary Far­ley in his lat­est bud­get state­ment. At a gen­er­al tax rate of 29 per cent, that gives tax­able ca­pac­i­ty of just un­der $500 mil­lion. It should be not­ed that about $214 mil­lion of those tax­es are cur­rent­ly col­lect­ed in To­ba­go. So, about $286 mil­lion is col­lect­ed by the agen­cies of the Gov­ern­ment in Trinidad,” said Dr James, in an in­ter­view pub­lished in the Ju­ly 11 edi­tion of the Busi­ness Guardian.

Those fig­ures, ac­cord­ing to Dr James, in­di­cat­ed that near to 80 per cent of the mon­ey spent by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) came from a trans­fer from Trinidad.

“When you add in the near­ly $1 bil­lion spent on oth­er Gov­ern­ment ser­vices by the Gov­ern­ment, the lev­el of de­pen­dence of To­ba­go on Trinidad in­creas­es to about 86 per cent of Gov­ern­ment spend­ing,” James said.

So, from a fi­nan­cial point of view, it can be con­clud­ed that if To­ba­go were an en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent, self-gov­ern­ing coun­try, it would be re­quired to de­pend on the es­ti­mat­ed $214 mil­lion it cur­rent­ly col­lects in To­ba­go, and from To­bag­o­ni­ans. In com­par­i­son, it would need to spend about $4.5 bil­lion to al­low the res­i­dents of the is­land to main­tain the stan­dard of liv­ing they cur­rent­ly en­joy as part of the uni­fied state of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Clear­ly, then, the To­ba­go econ­o­my would not be vi­able, if the is­land were in­de­pen­dent. In oth­er words, as it stands now, To­ba­go could not sur­vive with­out Trinidad and, as well, Trinidad would be bet­ter off in­de­pen­dent of To­ba­go, as the larg­er is­land would have the es­ti­mat­ed $4.5 bil­lion, that is now trans­ferred to To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans, to spend in Trinidad, and on Trinida­di­ans.

But it is ob­vi­ous that the THA and its chief sec­re­tary, Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine, are aware of the arith­metic and ab­solute­ly do not want in­de­pen­dence.

What To­ba­go wants, ac­cord­ing to Mr Au­gus­tine, is to be an au­tonomous, self-gov­ern­ing coun­try with­in the uni­fied state of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It seems to me that what Mr Au­gus­tine re­al­ly wants is for the is­land’s as­sem­bly to take all the de­ci­sions per­ti­nent to the man­age­ment of To­ba­go’s af­fairs while con­tin­u­ing to en­joy the $4.5 bil­lion I es­ti­mate the is­land re­ceives on an an­nu­al ba­sis from Trinidad.

In fact, To­ba­go wants more mon­ey from Trinidad than it is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing.

The Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion Re­port, which was de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber 2000, made rec­om­men­da­tions about the amount of mon­ey the THA should re­ceive:

“That a per­cent­age in the range of 4.03 per cent to 6.9 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get, 4.03 per cent be­ing the min­i­mum, be al­lo­cat­ed to the As­sem­bly to cov­er both the re­cur­rent and de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tions for each fi­nan­cial year, such per­cent­age to be re­viewed from year to year in the light of pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances.”

But the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill, which was passed in Par­lia­ment last week Mon­day, states:

“Par­lia­ment shall ap­pro­pri­ate for the use of the House of As­sem­bly for any fi­nan­cial year no less than 6.8 per cent of the to­tal sum ap­pro­pri­at­ed by Par­lia­ment in that fi­nan­cial year or such oth­er per­cent­age as may be de­ter­mined by the Fis­cal Re­view Com­mit­tee un­der sec­tion 43 and ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment by res­o­lu­tion.”

So that means the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion in 2000, when the late Bas­deo Pan­day was prime min­is­ter, that To­ba­go should re­ceive be­tween 4.03 per cent and 6.9 per cent, would have been in­creased to “no less than 6.8 per cent” un­der the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill.

That leg­is­la­tion was in­tro­duced in June 30, 2021, which means the Cab­i­net head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley would have ap­proved the pro­posed in­creased al­lo­ca­tion to the THA. It al­so means that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion was pre­pared to grant the THA a larg­er per­cent­age of the to­tal sum ap­pro­pri­at­ed by Par­lia­ment for ex­pen­di­ture on the is­land.

The To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill re­quired a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty and was passed. But the To­ba­go Is­land As­sem­bly Bill was meant to be yoked to the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, which re­quired a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of 75 per cent (three fourths). That bill failed be­cause the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion does not have a three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment. As a re­sult of the fail­ure of the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill did not stand.

That Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill was meant to “pro­mote the in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment of To­ba­go by pro­vid­ing, in­ter alia, for the fol­low­ing:

(a) Recog­ni­tion of the equal­i­ty of sta­tus be­tween the is­land of To­ba­go and the Is­land of Trinidad (clause 5);

(b) Ac­knowl­edge­ment in the Pre­am­ble to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing the right of the peo­ple of To­ba­go to de­ter­mine, in To­ba­go, their po­lit­i­cal sta­tus and to freely pur­sue their eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment;

(c) Es­tab­lish­ment of a To­ba­go Leg­is­la­ture which would con­sist of the Pres­i­dent, a House of As­sem­bly and a Peo­ple’s House and would have pow­er to make laws for the peace, or­der and good gov­ern­ment of the Is­land of To­ba­go, ex­cept with re­spect to cer­tain mat­ters list­ed in a pro­posed fourth sched­ule to the Con­sti­tu­tion which shall re­main un­der the purview of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment...

(d) A To­ba­go Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, com­pris­ing a chief sec­re­tary and oth­er sec­re­taries, which would be re­spon­si­ble for the gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol of the gov­ern­ment of the Is­land of To­ba­go, ex­cept con­cern­ing the mat­ters list­ed in the pro­posed fourth sched­ule to the Con­sti­tu­tion (clause 12)...”

Again, this was leg­is­la­tion, it seems to me, that pro­posed to grant To­ba­go full self-gov­ern­ment, with its ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil re­spon­si­ble for “the gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol of the gov­ern­ment” on the is­land, re­plac­ing the Cab­i­net of T&T. The To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill pro­posed to in­crease the sub­ven­tion to To­ba­go to no less 6.8 per cent. Tak­en to­geth­er, those two pieces of leg­is­la­tion would have giv­en To­ba­go ex­act­ly what it re­al­ly wants: al­most to­tal con­trol over the man­age­ment of To­ba­go and more mon­ey.

Two ques­tions:

1) Is it ac­cept­able arrange­ment of the af­fairs be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad that the for­mer should have con­sid­er­able more con­trol over its af­fairs AND re­ceive more mon­ey from Trinidad?

2) If the two bills that were be­fore Par­lia­ment last week Mon­day gave the THA greater pow­er and more mon­ey, why would the As­sem­bly’s chief sec­re­tary, Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine, have re­ferred to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in such a deroga­to­ry and hos­tile man­ner af­ter the sit­ting in Par­lia­ment?

It seems to me that the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill failed be­cause it did not get the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress...for what­ev­er rea­son.

Why was To­ba­go made a ward of Trinidad?

In a tele­vised ad­dress on No­vem­ber 10, 2024, Au­gus­tine cit­ed Ar­ti­cle 1 of the Unit­ed Na­tion’s In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, which states: “All peo­ples have the right of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. By virtue of that right, they freely de­ter­mine their po­lit­i­cal sta­tus and freely pur­sue their eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.”

He added, “This long over­due de­liv­ery of our right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is by and large a quest to cor­rect an his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tice...

“For 200-plus years be­fore the arranged mar­riage to Trinidad, To­ba­go ac­tu­al­ly en­joyed a high­ly au­tonomous way of gov­ern­ing it­self and had a gov­ern­ment with au­ton­o­my lev­els that were not ex­is­tent in Trinidad for those 200-plus years.

“In fact, the join­ing with Trinidad was a down­grade in terms of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go.”

To­ba­go did have au­tonomous gov­er­nance arrange­ments long be­fore Trinidad, but To­ba­go lost its au­ton­o­my and be­came ap­pend­ed to Trinidad be­cause its econ­o­my col­lapsed in the late 19th cen­tu­ry.

As Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley ar­gued in a state­ment to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 9, 2018:

“As the nine­teenth (19th) cen­tu­ry closed, To­ba­go was still pro­duc­ing mus­co­v­a­do sug­ar, which was al­most worth­less for ex­port by the lat­er 1880’s.

“Land val­ues crashed, es­tates could be bought for a song. By 1894, sug­ar ex­ports were a pa­thet­ic 599 tons, and the val­ue of To­ba­go’s ex­ports of sug­ar, rum and mo­lasses was on­ly £15.872. Rev­enues fell steeply; pub­lic works em­ploy­ees went un­paid for months, the pub­lic ser­vices, such as they were, cut back. To­ba­go’s ex­port sug­ar in­dus­try, lack­ing cap­i­tal and im­mi­grant labour, faced with dras­ti­cal­ly falling prices for crude sug­ar was go­ing un­der; the is­land was vir­tu­al­ly bank­rupt.”

Our for­mer British colo­nial mas­ters de­cid­ed that To­ba­go could not sur­vive with­out Trinidad.