Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour says Gov­ern­ment will need to re­vis­it the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills af­ter the Op­po­si­tion’s re­jec­tion of the key Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) bill.

The bill, which re­quired a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty to pass, failed af­ter Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers vot­ed against it.

The bill pro­posed changes to how the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) op­er­ates, grant­i­ng it more ad­min­is­tra­tive con­trol and en­hanc­ing its abil­i­ty to man­age To­ba­go’s af­fairs.

The sec­ond bill, the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill, is now stalled, as it de­pends on the re­ject­ed bill to take ef­fect.

Speak­ing on the is­sue dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices of To­ba­go (CAST) of­fice in Scar­bor­ough, Ar­mour said, “But be­cause the Op­po­si­tion vot­ed against the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment bill, the To­ba­go bill that we did pass is now on hold. We have to go back to the draw­ing board be­cause it would not be able to take ef­fect, giv­en that the Op­po­si­tion did not sup­port the Amend­ment bill, that’s as much as I can say.”

Ar­mour said he was not hap­py with what tran­spired in the House, giv­en the ef­fort put in­to the mat­ter.

“I was there for the de­bate on the two bills, and I was dis­ap­point­ed that the Op­po­si­tion vot­ed against the bill.”

Crit­ics, how­ev­er, in­clud­ing THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, ar­gue that the pro­pos­als do not ad­dress To­ba­go’s core de­mands, such as clear­ly defin­ing its mar­itime bor­ders and grant­i­ng more leg­isla­tive pow­er to the is­land.

Au­gus­tine has called for “re­al au­ton­o­my” and warned against su­per­fi­cial amend­ments that fail to meet To­bag­o­ni­ans’ ex­pec­ta­tions. An­gered by the bill’s fail­ure, Au­gus­tine called Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley a “house slave” for fail­ing to lis­ten to the “needs of To­bag­o­ni­ans.”

The at­tack has up­set many peo­ple, in­clud­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee chair­man Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da, who said lead­ers should speak care­ful­ly and not use words that hurt oth­ers or dis­tract from im­por­tant is­sues.

PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, say­ing he has helped To­ba­go with big projects, while ac­cus­ing Au­gus­tine of fail­ing to fix To­ba­go’s prob­lems.

He called it a sad day, com­par­ing the sit­u­a­tion to past fail­ures and say­ing To­ba­go re­mains stuck with lim­it­ed pow­er and fund­ing.

Busi­ness leader Mar­tin George al­so said lead­ers should talk kind­ly, set a good ex­am­ple for chil­dren, and avoid per­son­al at­tacks so every­one can work to­geth­er.

The bills’ re­jec­tion led to blame and dis­agree­ments among To­ba­go’s lead­ers.

Some be­lieve po­lit­i­cal games and poor plan­ning caused its fail­ure, while oth­ers ar­gue the bills wouldn’t have helped or­di­nary peo­ple.

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion for putting pol­i­tics first and blamed Au­gus­tine for push­ing dis­uni­ty, while In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus wel­comed the re­jec­tion, say­ing the bills didn’t ad­dress com­mu­ni­ty needs and called for a more in­clu­sive process.

To­ba­go Di­vi­sion chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, said there is now a need for bet­ter pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion on the bills.