Gail Alexan­der

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his “In­de­pen­dent” team need to “pull up their socks and panty­hose” in 2023, or they may as well kiss good­bye to a sec­ond term.

And the team needs to do three crit­i­cal things im­me­di­ate­ly to see about To­bag­o­ni­ans, or there’ll be calls for them to go.

That’s the re­spec­tive opin­ions of for­mer pub­lic ser­vice head Regi­nald Du­mas and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) front­lin­er Dr Vanus James.

The views from To­ba­go’s el­der states­men were among To­bag­o­ni­ans’ ex­pres­sions of con­cern af­ter Au­gus­tine and his THA ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers re­signed on Mon­day from the PDP, the par­ty on whose tick­et they won the THA elec­tions last De­cem­ber 6.

PDP leader Wat­son Duke is seek­ing le­gal ad­vice on whether they can con­tin­ue con­trol­ling the THA as In­de­pen­dents - which Au­gus­tine says they now are. Duke al­so wrote to THA Pres­i­dent Of­fi­cer Ab­by Tay­lor yes­ter­day, call­ing on her to de­clare their seats va­cant. (See page 5)

Yes­ter­day, Du­mas said he wasn’t sur­prised at the de­vel­op­ment. He said months ago - af­ter clash­es be­tween Duke and Au­gus­tine - he’d pro­ject­ed the “dis­si­dent group” would leave the PDP and es­tab­lish a new par­ty.

“It was clear there was no love lost be­tween them, no meet­ing of the minds and a de­ci­sion to break away was ahead. But if you have to go to the polls, you can’t go as in­de­pen­dents - some group­ing must be set up,” Du­mas said.

“I’ve not en­coun­tered a ‘gov­ern­ment of In­de­pen­dents’ since colo­nial days - and that led to the PNM’s for­ma­tion. So, I ex­pect a par­ty will be formed from which peo­ple can speak and vote.

“How­ev­er, I see noth­ing in the THA Act to sug­gest there has to be an elec­tion. You can dis­solve the As­sem­bly be­fore the end of its four-year term but by res­o­lu­tion, so I don’t see an elec­tion hap­pen­ing.”

Du­mas didn’t know if Au­gus­tine’s group would lose if an elec­tion is held. But he said a lot of un­hap­pi­ness be­ing ex­pressed in the team pre­dat­ed Mon­day’s act (res­ig­na­tions) and it was felt As­sem­bly mem­bers weren’t fo­cused, were ‘all over the place’ and some were per­ceived as ar­ro­gant.

“There’s been al­most to­tal ab­sence of con­sul­ta­tion with the peo­ple, though Far­ley said there would be con­sul­ta­tion. But they’ve man­aged to con­sult on noth­ing. I want to see what sort of be­hav­iour 2023 will bring. But from what I’ve been see­ing and hear­ing, if (Au­gus­tine’s team) doesn’t pull up their socks and panty­hose in 2023, they may as well kiss good­bye to a sec­ond term.”

Du­mas, how­ev­er, felt they may last the term. “Hard­ly any­body re­signs here. We’ll see if the mat­ter goes to court and man­dates that. But on the face of it, there’s no need to move,” he said.

Du­mas said a poll is cur­rent­ly be­ing done on how To­bag­o­ni­ans feel about the team’s first year in of­fice. He said while the PNM man­aged, the THA was be­ing asked about their spend­ing. But he said Au­gus­tine’s THA al­so “has to watch them­selves on cer­tain con­tracts award­ed” and whether these can stand scruti­ny by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

James: They must pro­duce fast

Tobago Economist Dr Vanus James.

THA INFO DEPT

Dr Vanus James, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly tried to bro­ker peace talks be­tween Au­gus­tine and Duke when the spat that led to a fall­out months ago went pub­lic, doesn’t think that’s pos­si­ble again.

He said those in the As­sem­bly are work­ing as a team and still hold the oblig­a­tion they took on last De­cem­ber - but that and over­sight mech­a­nisms re­main lack­ing.

“First thing they need to do im­me­di­ate­ly is es­tab­lish a mech­a­nism for the pub­lic to par­tic­i­pate in the pol­i­cy-mak­ing process and via which To­ba­go’s crit­i­cal busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can di­a­logue. They don’t have a year to do that. They don’t even have the time to en­joy Christ­mas,” James said.

He said they al­so can­not avoid es­tab­lish­ing a par­ty, since that car­ries the el­e­ments for ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion and rap­port.

“They’ll have to do that if they’re se­ri­ous about stay­ing in pow­er,” he said.

James said the sit­u­a­tion is ur­gent­ly need­ed, since THA’s gov­ern­ment is “still top-down, lack­ing mech­a­nisms for the pub­lic to weigh in on poli­cies, eval­u­ate Au­gus­tine and his team and as­cer­tain rou­tine pol­i­cy­mak­ing.”

“The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is in big trou­ble and (the As­sem­bly) needs to hear what de­vel­op­ment plan they’re try­ing to build. Noth­ing’s been done from De­cem­ber to date and if they choose to do what I’ve de­tailed, they have a chance. If not, the cry will go out for them to be re­moved and peo­ple like me will have to say if they haven’t act­ed in the pub­lic in­ter­est, they need to go.”

Sev­er­al small busi­ness op­er­a­tors al­so ex­pressed con­cern yes­ter­day.

“This is our lat­est prob­lem - not know­ing how this will work out, if it’s go­ing to court, to elec­tions - where and what out­comes. To­ba­go is small, every­thing that oc­curs af­fects us all. Things can’t seem to set­tle down, that’s not a good foun­da­tion for us to con­tin­ue try­ing to re­cov­er from lock­down,” one of them who did not want to be named said.