Clay­ton Clarke

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Far­ley Au­gus­tine is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to con­firm that he con­tact­ed him to dis­cuss the ap­point­ment of a new Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.  

Au­gus­tine’s re­quest is the lat­est in a war of words be­tween the two lead­ers. Eth­lyn John re­tired as the last Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor on May 17 and to date, a suc­ces­sor has not been named. The next in line is Richard Top­pin.

Au­gus­tine was speak­ing dur­ing the THA Bud­get de­bate in the THA As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture late last evening.

“The Prime Min­is­ter gave the im­pres­sion to the pub­lic that some­how I am the rea­son why there’s no chief ad­min­is­tra­tor. And I am the rea­son why a se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cial wasn’t picked to be chief ad­min­is­tra­tor, ig­nor­ing the same process that he talked about in the House (of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives).

“I even saw a dossier of doc­u­ments with two let­ters I have nev­er seen in my life. I don’t know where he sent those let­ters. But I have al­ready start­ed in­ves­ti­gat­ing my own of­fice to see if by chance it came and no­body brought those let­ters to me. Be­cause I saw a let­ter, for ex­am­ple, dat­ed March 3 last year, in­di­cat­ing that he wants to start the con­sul­ta­tion process. But there’s a let­ter from me to him on March 10 com­plain­ing that there is no con­sul­ta­tion and a Chief Ad showed up with no con­sul­ta­tion.”

Au­gus­tine con­tend­ed that he did not mis­rep­re­sent the facts. “I’m not mad. If he had writ­ten to me and I had re­ceived this let­ter on March 3 say­ing we need to con­sult, there will be no need for me to write to him on March 10 com­plain­ing and us­ing such strong lan­guage. But more than that, we have a se­ri­ous con­cern be­cause, in his lat­est di­a­tribe, he’s try­ing to ap­por­tion blame to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. How can we be in a coun­try where a se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cial, se­nior as a Chief Ad, is re­tir­ing and a Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion is on­ly be­gin­ning the process the day of re­tire­ment or the day af­ter re­tire­ment? And how can it hap­pen in a con­text where an en­tire month be­fore the PS (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) to the Prime Min­is­ter was writ­ten?”

Far­ley said it has been close to 30 days since the mat­ter has not been re­solved. “... And I have every right to be­lieve that it was de­lib­er­ate. And it was meant to leave me out of the process.”

Au­gus­tine, in wind­ing up the de­bate, said if the Prime Min­is­ter did not con­tact him he hopes he ho­n­ours his word and re­signs. “If those doc­u­ments are found I will make it known to the pub­lic. But next week I will give a fuller state­ment on the mat­ter and I hope the Prime Min­is­ter is a man to his word be­cause he placed his own of­fice on the line over this mat­ter.”