ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris yes­ter­day en­gaged in a war of words over a mo­tion on au­ton­o­my sched­uled for de­bate dur­ing to­day’s ple­nary sit­ting.

In a Face­book Live last evening, Au­gus­tine shut down Mor­ris’ sug­ges­tions that the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my mo­tion is de­cep­tive, in­sist­ing there’s noth­ing to hide.

“There is, and I’m com­mit­ting one time be­fore I trans­mit the sup­port­ing pol­i­cy pa­per to the Prime Min­is­ter, I will pub­lish that pol­i­cy pa­per pub­licly. So every­body, all To­bag­o­ni­ans, can see that pol­i­cy pa­per,” Au­gus­tine said.

“If you don’t want to come to­mor­row (to­day) to the as­sem­bly, stay home. That’s up to you, but I will not be with­draw­ing the mo­tion.”

The mo­tion, list­ed un­der “Pri­vate Busi­ness” for de­bate in the 41st Sit­ting of the As­sem­bly, calls for the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, through the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel, to work with the THA to ex­pand its leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry pow­ers over mat­ters in the Fifth Sched­ule of Act No 40 of 1996. It al­so asks the Gov­ern­ment to re­view all pre­vi­ous ver­sions of the au­ton­o­my bills with in­put from the THA, iden­ti­fy ar­eas of con­sen­sus, and rein­tro­duce the bills in Par­lia­ment at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty. Once passed, the Chief Sec­re­tary is to trans­mit the mo­tion and a sup­port­ing pol­i­cy pa­per to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Re­spond­ing to Mor­ris’ claim that he (Au­gus­tine) was try­ing to un­der­mine To­ba­go’s leg­isla­tive au­thor­i­ty, Au­gus­tine said the mo­tion strength­ens—not di­lutes—the as­sem­bly’s role.

“I don’t know what is self­ish about that. I don’t know what is de­cep­tive about that. I don’t know what is wrong with that,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said THA had al­ready formed a com­mit­tee of ex­perts to work on a pol­i­cy pa­per along­side the mo­tion to trans­mit to the Prime Min­is­ter in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

Au­gus­tine al­so dis­missed Mor­ris’ ac­cu­sa­tion that the process lacks con­sul­ta­tion and uni­ty, point­ing out, “I have nev­er not been com­mit­ted to an in­clu­sive and con­sul­ta­tive process.”

In a warn­ing, he added, “No­body—not Row­ley and not Kam­la—will erode the in­tegri­ty of the THA or the au­thor­i­ty of the THA, once I am in charge of the THA and leader of the unit­ed front that puts To­ba­go first.”

At a me­dia brief­ing ear­li­er, Mor­ris claimed To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my was be­ing qui­et­ly hand­ed over to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment by Au­gus­tine via the mo­tion.

Mor­ris said the move will “be­tray the peo­ple” and warned that if the mo­tion pass­es dur­ing to­day’s ple­nary sit­ting, it would grant the Gov­ern­ment the au­thor­i­ty to draft amend­ments to the THA Act with­out manda­to­ry pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

“This isn’t au­ton­o­my that the Chief Sec­re­tary is about to de­liv­er to the peo­ple of To­ba­go. What it is re­al­ly about—it is a hi­jack of the peo­ple’s voice, the To­bag­on­ian’s voice, and it is an ab­solute be­tray­al of every­thing Mr Far­ley Au­gus­tine once claimed to be­lieve in,” Mor­ris said.