The Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form says it did not push Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to change the Coat of Arms.

Al­though the PM’s in­ten­tion to re­place Christo­pher Colum­bus’ ships with the steel­pan on the Coat of Arms came just four days af­ter the com­mit­tee’s re­port on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form was pub­lished, Dr Ter­rence Far­rell, a com­mit­tee mem­ber, yes­ter­day said this was not what was specif­i­cal­ly rec­om­mend­ed.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Far­rell clar­i­fied that the com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed there be a chap­ter in the Con­sti­tu­tion that recog­nis­es all of the na­tion­al sym­bols. This in­cludes the na­tion­al flag, na­tion­al an­them, Coat of Arms, in­stru­ment, flower, pledge, birds and watch­words.

Dr Far­rell said, “Our rec­om­men­da­tions were that these sym­bols should be in­clud­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion, which it now is not. But we did not make any rec­om­men­da­tions for chang­ing any of them. We did have rep­re­sen­ta­tion that the Con­sti­tu­tion should in­clude some­thing about the steel­pan, which we have done.”

Fol­low­ing the news of a pos­si­ble ad­just­ment to the Coat of Arms, there have been mixed re­ac­tions from many peo­ple, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts and his­to­ri­ans.

How­ev­er, Dr Far­rell said peo­ple are free to share their con­cerns, since none of the rec­om­men­da­tions put for­ward by the com­mit­tee are set in stone. He said this al­so goes for the rec­om­men­da­tions re­ject­ed by the PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion Re­view Com­mit­tee, in­clud­ing fixed dates for elec­tions, pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and ref­or­ma­tion of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion rights.

“You’re not go­ing to have 100 per cent agree­ment on every­thing, so I think that in many in­stances, you’re just go­ing to have to kind of go with what the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion is say­ing. As an econ­o­mist, my view is that you kind of do a Pare­to op­ti­mal­i­ty thing and you say, if you do this, is it go­ing to make more peo­ple hap­py? And, the rest of the peo­ple, is it go­ing to af­fect them?”

He said the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion for ref­or­ma­tion of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion rights has to do with clar­i­fy­ing a per­son’s sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion ver­sus their sex, and that no one is dis­crim­i­nat­ed against for this.

Some po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts al­so com­plained that the re­port was not eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic. In re­sponse, Dr Far­rell said the com­mit­tee has been work­ing on ma­te­r­i­al for the pub­lic, in­clud­ing in­for­ma­tive videos that will clar­i­fy the rec­om­men­da­tions and con­cerns of the pub­lic high­light­ed in the re­port.

Mean­while, the Gov­ern­ment is call­ing on the pub­lic to weigh in on the fu­ture of stat­ues, mon­u­ments and sig­nage across T&T.

A pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion or­gan­ised by the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Com­mit­tee on Stat­ues, Mon­u­ments and Sig­nage is sched­uled for Au­gust 28 from 5 pm-7 pm at the Gov­ern­ment Plaza Au­di­to­ri­um Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain.