Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Re­tired head of the pub­lic ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas has raised eye­brows over Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s de­ci­sion to bold­ly call for sup­port of To­ba­go’s jour­ney to au­ton­o­my.

Dur­ing her in­au­gur­al vis­it to To­ba­go on Wednes­day, Kan­ga­loo ex­pressed her sup­port for the move.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia last evening, Du­mas not­ed that the is­sue of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go is high­ly po­lit­i­cal and that it was sur­pris­ing that the Pres­i­dent would in­volve her­self in this mat­ter.

“I agree that it’s sur­pris­ing that the Pres­i­dent would get in­volved in a mat­ter where on the face of it, it’s so high­ly po­lit­i­cal. But, maybe we have a dif­fer­ent kind of Pres­i­dent now and we will see what’s hap­pen­ing,” he said.

While Du­mas agreed with the need for au­ton­o­my in To­ba­go, he raised con­cerns about the lack of clar­i­ty on what as­pects of au­ton­o­my were be­ing dis­cussed.

“I think the Pres­i­dent may have put her­self at odds with the Gov­ern­ment by mak­ing this state­ment and I don’t know quite what she means when she says au­ton­o­my,” he added.

He not­ed that the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on this mat­ter had rec­om­mend­ed that the pow­ers to make laws should re­main with the Par­lia­ment, which could pose dif­fi­cul­ties for To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance.

“One of the things that To­ba­go wants in terms of self-gov­er­nance, as I am one of those who would like to see in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment, is the pow­er to make laws now for To­ba­go. If that is not to be in the au­ton­o­my bill, or what­ev­er we fi­nal­ly have, that could cause some dif­fi­cul­ties,” he ex­plained. Du­mas al­so not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on self-gov­ern­ment and au­ton­o­my has been mixed over the years. He stressed the need for clar­i­ty on what is meant by in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment and what as­pects of it are be­ing dis­cussed.

“I’m not sure the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has giv­en its po­si­tion on self-gov­ern­ment over the years, have not been too keen on the idea of self-gov­ern­ment, and this start­ed with (Dr) Er­ic Williams.

“I know what’s in my mind and I have an idea of what was in the mind of ANR Robin­son be­cause it’s a mat­ter I dis­cussed with him over the years. But I can’t speak for the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I don’t know what’s in their mind.

“If it is that we are go­ing to use the words in the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee re­port which specif­i­cal­ly ex­cludes (the) pow­er of any ad­min­is­tra­tion in To­ba­go to make laws, then you won­der (about) the na­ture of this in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment. We shall see,” Du­mas said.