Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in Par­lia­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said it is im­pos­si­ble to pro­vide a de­fin­i­tive time­line for de­liv­ery of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go in cir­cum­stances where the PNM Gov­ern­ment is not get­ting the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion.

“The ques­tion should per­haps bet­ter be put to those who op­posed the (Au­ton­o­my) Bill. Will they now give their sup­port as the PNM with its 22 votes can­not amend the Con­sti­tu­tion,” she said.

Au­ton­o­my de­liv­ery has been in the mak­ing through­out the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion’s two terms. Two weeks ago, Robin­son-Reg­is con­firmed that the two au­ton­o­my bills - the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment Self Gov­ern­ment Bill and To­ba­go Is­land Ad­min­is­tra­tion Bill - were car­ried over to the cur­rent ses­sion of Par­lia­ment and are on the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ agen­da in the fi­nal com­mit­tee stage.

Yes­ter­day Robin­son-Reg­is re­count­ed the is­sue’s his­to­ry, in­clud­ing the pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with key stake­hold­ers held in To­ba­go be­tween 2007-2016 led by for­mer THA Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don among oth­ers.

In 2016 there was THA de­bate on a draft bill to amend T&T’s Con­sti­tu­tion to give self-gov­ern­ment to To­ba­go.

“The re­sult of these con­sul­ta­tions were tak­en from To­ba­go di­rect­ly as a note to the Cab­i­net and from Cab­i­net to Par­lia­ment,” she said.

“It went on to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) in March 2018 chaired by me. A re­port came from that com­mit­tee along with two bills which were de­bat­ed in the Par­lia­ment. The pro­vi­sions of that ex­er­cise had a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant changes. The bills are still in the Par­lia­ment fol­low­ing the de­bate and are stuck at the com­mit­tee stage.”

Robin­son-Reg­is said the is­sue was put be­fore To­bag­o­ni­ans dur­ing the last THA elec­tion. The PNM lost that poll.

“Up­on re­sump­tion of the new Par­lia­ment, the Bill was re­ferred to a new JSC in No­vem­ber 2020. The com­mit­tee sought feed­back from mem­bers of the pub­lic on its pre­lim­i­nary find­ings and pro­pos­als.

“In 2021, the PNM sup­port­ed and ad­vo­cat­ed that the JSC’s work be ac­cept­ed. The UNC and the PDP en­cour­aged To­bag­o­ni­ans to re­ject the bill. The PNM and the bill were re­ject­ed. The PNM by it­self doesn’t have the votes to en­act the pro­vi­sions of the bill with­out the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion.”

The Op­po­si­tion mem­bers on the JSC were not pleased with the bills and called for more con­sul­ta­tions. Dur­ing the de­bate of the JSC’s re­port in June 2021, the Op­po­si­tion walked out of the Par­lia­ment. Gov­ern­ment MPs how­ev­er vot­ed to adopt the JSC’s re­port and the bills were moved in­to the fi­nal com­mit­tee stage where they are cur­rent­ly.”

Yes­ter­day UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John who was on the JSC said, “As a To­bag­on­ian, I find those bills had se­ri­ous flaws. The process lacked even the ba­sic re­spect of con­sul­ta­tion with To­bag­o­ni­ans and in­ter­est groups, so we’ll want to see if the bills re­main in com­mit­tee stage or if they’re with­drawn by Gov­ern­ment. Then we can give our po­si­tion.”

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Lau­rence His­lop said au­ton­o­my “should have been were it not for those op­po­site.”

He said the Pres­i­dent’s his­tor­i­cal ac­count showed clear­ly that PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil lead­ers pri­or­i­tized the need for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my.

“The PNM un­der Dr Kei­th Row­ley went fur­ther when it took Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. It trig­gered the mech­a­nism for the As­sem­bly bills on which sig­nif­i­cant con­sul­ta­tion was done. They were tabled in Par­lia­ment and sent be­fore JSCs span­ning sev­er­al par­lia­men­tary ses­sions and two par­lia­men­tary terms to keep the is­sue alive. Dr Row­ley showed his com­mit­ment to get­ting this done.”

His­lop added, “If the present Chief Sec­re­tary and oth­ers had shown full sup­port and called on the Op­po­si­tion to sup­port the bills To­ba­go would have been in a bet­ter place on au­ton­o­my. If the cur­rent THA ad­min­is­tra­tion is re­al­ly se­ri­ous about au­ton­o­my it will have ma­ture con­ver­sa­tions with Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion on mov­ing the process for­ward.”