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Friday, June 13, 2025

Farley, PM feud over Chief Administrator worsens

... Augustine accuses Rowley of protecting 'friends' named in THA audit

by

Sampson Nanton
721 days ago
20230622
Tobago House of Assembly  Chief Secretary Farley Augustine speaks during yesterday’s sitting of the Assembly.

Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Farley Augustine speaks during yesterday’s sitting of the Assembly.

Assembly Legislature, Tobago House of Assembly

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@cnc3.co.tt

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said yes­ter­day that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has been spout­ing “hog­wash” in his ac­count to the na­tion for the de­lay in ap­point­ing a Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor.

In a near 40-minute ad­dress dur­ing a sit­ting of the THA at the As­sem­bly Cham­ber in Scar­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said he is con­fi­dent that crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings will be brought against “friends of the Prime Min­is­ter” based on the find­ings of a THA fi­nan­cial au­dit.

“I brought to this House an au­dit re­port and did not call the names of any con­trac­tors in­volved in the au­dit. In fact, those con­trac­tors called them­selves out,” he said, re­veal­ing that the full re­port was now in the hands of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Fraud Squad, Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau and Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

He told the THA that hav­ing learnt his­tor­i­cal lessons from the Scott Drug Re­port, he will not make the re­port pub­lic or lay it in the THA, nor will he give it to the THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader and the Prime Min­is­ter.

“They will want to warn their friends and have the re­port thrown out,” Au­gus­tine charged.

He said based on sound le­gal ad­vice, he be­lieves the con­tents of the re­port will lead to civ­il and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion against sev­er­al peo­ple.

The Chief Sec­re­tary be­lieves the au­dit re­port is linked to the pub­lic feud he and the PM have been hav­ing over the ap­point­ment of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor.

In his view, the PM was de­lib­er­ate­ly seek­ing to have his choice ap­point­ed to the post of Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor in an at­tempt to cov­er up the find­ings of the re­port.

“I be­lieve this is a firm plot to save the friends of the Prime Min­is­ter,” he said, adding that Dr Row­ley “has been de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing the na­tion.”

He then re­ferred to the PM as “the dead­ly de­ceit­ful leader of the Gov­ern­ment of this coun­try.”

Ac­cord­ing to Au­gus­tine, on April 17, the out­go­ing of­fice hold­er, Eth­leyn John, wrote to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (PS) in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Mau­rice Suite, in­form­ing him that the va­can­cy was im­mi­nent as she was due to re­tire on May 18.

Au­gus­tine said John asked the PS for an or­der of mer­it list for the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor po­si­tion to al­low the Chief Sec­re­tary to view it pri­or to con­sul­ta­tion with the PM.

The list, he said, was nev­er pro­vid­ed.

Au­gus­tine said with the re­tire­ment of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor ap­proach­ing, he wrote Dr Row­ley on May 15 seek­ing a meet­ing.

The let­ter stat­ed, “At this junc­ture, two days away from the re­tire­ment of the cur­rent Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor, no such con­sul­ta­tion has hap­pened be­tween your good self and me. This let­ter, there­fore, serves as both a re­minder of the le­gal re­quire­ment and an av­enue through which I will share my rec­om­men­da­tion for the ap­point­ment of a new Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor. In this re­gard, I wish to have (name redact­ed) con­sid­ered for ap­point­ment of Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor.”

Au­gus­tine said he and the PM met on May 22 for the first of­fi­cial con­sul­ta­tion on the mat­ter, which was a re­quire­ment un­der Sec­tion 71.4 of the THA Act.

That sec­tion states, “Pri­or to con­sul­ta­tion with the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion on the ap­point­ment of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor, the Prime Min­is­ter shall con­sult with the Chief Sec­re­tary.”

Au­gus­tine told the As­sem­bly, “The on­ly name dis­cussed in that meet­ing was that of the rec­om­men­da­tion made by the Chief Sec­re­tary. No oth­er names were brought up, no bad re­port was giv­en about any pub­lic ser­vant in To­ba­go. I just re-pro­posed the name that I had writ­ten about the week be­fore. Dur­ing that meet­ing, no in­di­ca­tion was giv­en by the Prime Min­is­ter nor the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) that they were con­sid­er­ing names.”

He told the THA that as a re­sult, he was shocked when the PM re­turned to the coun­try from The Ba­hamas “and led the coun­try to be­lieve through his in­sin­u­a­tions and part­ly vac­u­ous state­ment that we might have dis­cussed the name of a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant and that I did not in­form him that there were dis­ci­pli­nary is­sues with said pub­lic ser­vant.”

“Let me be very clear, at no point and up to this point, the Prime Min­is­ter and my­self have dis­cussed any oth­er pub­lic ser­vant save and ex­cept for the one I rec­om­mend­ed,” Au­gus­tine said.

Au­gus­tine said he reached out to the PM one week lat­er, on May 29.

“At 7.40 pm, he re­spond­ed by say­ing, ‘Good evening, could you send me the name of the per­son you sug­gest­ed and who we agreed up­on? I was busy in Par­lia­ment to­day. I will di­rect the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary on Wednes­day’,” Au­gus­tine said.

“I again reached out to the Prime Min­is­ter one week lat­er, on June 5, 2023. The Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed ear­ly in the morn­ing on June 6 2023, at 12.29 am: ‘I have been beg­ging to have the PSC make the ap­point­ment that we agreed on. On­ly to­day (Mon­day), I checked on it. Hope­ful­ly, very soon.”

Au­gus­tine said up to that point, he was not blam­ing the PM for the non-ap­point­ment of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor.

“I was blam­ing the PSC. I was led to be­lieve that the PM did what he was sup­posed to do and that we were wait­ing on the PSC.”

He said it was on­ly when the THA’s at­tor­neys wrote the PSC on June 9 that the di­rec­tor of per­son­nel ad­min­is­tra­tion at the PSC re­spond­ed on June 15.

He read a por­tion of that let­ter: “The com­mis­sion had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­point­ed an of­fi­cer to act as Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor from May 17, 2023, sub­ject to con­sul­ta­tion as pro­vid­ed for in the Con­sti­tu­tion. There­after, the com­mis­sion was no­ti­fied by the then Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor of the THA by let­ter dat­ed May 17, 2023, of a re­port of al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against the of­fice des­ig­nat­ed for the ap­point­ment. Up­on con­sid­er­ing the no­ti­fi­ca­tion, the com­mis­sion, on May 24, 2023, de­cid­ed that the des­ig­nat­ed of­fi­cer cease to re­port for du­ty.”

Au­gus­tine said he was alarmed to learn that some­one had been cho­sen and ap­point­ed to act with­out pri­or con­sul­ta­tion with him.

Not­ing that all this tran­spired five days pri­or to his meet­ing with the PM, he won­dered why it wasn’t raised then.

“It was the PSC’s du­ty to in­form the PM, not mine. So, this talk about me not giv­ing the PM a re­port is hog­wash.”

Au­gus­tine said on the ba­sis of the at­tack against him, he is left to won­der whether “the PM and his friends” want­ed to have their pick in­stalled as Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor with­out con­sult­ing him and if there was an agen­da to “thwart” the find­ings of the au­dit re­port.

Au­gus­tine told the THA that re­gard­less of ef­forts to “in­tim­i­date and de­fame my char­ac­ter, those re­spon­si­ble for steal­ing from the THA will be held re­spon­si­ble in the same way those re­spon­si­ble for the air­port fi­as­co are be­ing held ac­count­able now.”

“I re­call as a child in Sun­day School that I was taught that the most de­ceit­ful char­ac­ter in the uni­verse is a man called Sa­tan. And then I got to al­most the age of 38 and I en­coun­tered the Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley,” he said.

Bud­get Day June 26

Dur­ing the sit­ting, Au­gus­tine, in his ca­pac­i­ty as Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my, an­nounced that Bud­get Day for To­ba­go is June 26.

He said the 2023-2024 THA fis­cal pack­age will be pre­sent­ed in the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture from 10 am and the de­bate will take place on take place on June 29 from the same time.

The THA is re­quired to present its draft es­ti­mates to Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment by June 30 an­nu­al­ly.


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