Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine will reach out to each MP, re­quest­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills, which are set to re­turn to the House for de­bate soon. The let­ters will be sent out some time dur­ing this week.

At this time the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill 2020 and the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill 2021 are cur­rent­ly in the com­mit­tee stage in Par­lia­ment, where changes can still be made. Au­gus­tine is hope­ful that the Prime Min­is­ter, MPs and sen­a­tor will up­hold their com­mit­ment by sup­port­ing the bills once they align with the needs of the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

In his vir­tu­al ad­dress to To­bag­o­ni­ans Sun­day night, Au­gus­tine said To­bag­o­ni­ans “will not ac­cept lit­tle” af­ter decades of com­pro­mise. “It is the du­ty of the Par­lia­ment to pro­tect the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of To­ba­go through clear and un­am­bigu­ous pro­vi­sions en­trenched with­in the Con­sti­tu­tion. We took lit­tle in 1977. We took lit­tle in 1996. So, again, it is time for the re­al deal.

“There is no need to rein­vent the wheel, and giv­en how long To­bag­o­ni­ans have been bang­ing on the doors, now is not the time to tell To­bag­o­ni­ans to wait any longer.”

Au­gus­tine said while the PNM in­di­cat­ed the cur­rent bills would give pow­er to the is­land, there was “a new­er school of thought by some learned To­bag­o­ni­ans, and this school of thought sug­gests we should not pack too many items in this bill.”

He said the new ap­proach should be to give To­ba­go self-de­ter­mi­na­tion “along with the ac­cept­able de­f­i­n­i­tion of the ter­ri­to­ry of Trinidad, the clear po­si­tion­ing over ar­eas where To­ba­go has pow­er ...”, and then To­bag­o­ni­ans can re­turn to the poll.

The chief sec­re­tary al­so an­nounced the for­ma­tion of a com­mit­tee head­ed by po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James to lead the charge on the ground.

Au­gus­tine al­so said he was dis­ap­point­ed that the is­sue of au­ton­o­my seems to resur­face con­ve­nient­ly ahead of elec­tions, as it did in the 2013 and 2021 elec­tions. The gen­er­al elec­tion is set for next year, and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in the first quar­ter of 2026.

Over the past week, mem­bers of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil have held sev­er­al meet­ings and me­dia ap­pear­ances to dis­cuss the bills and their pas­sage as it is ex­pect­ed to come up for de­bate once again. How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine warned that the resur­fac­ing of the bills might be a po­lit­i­cal tac­tic.

“I wish this mat­ter wasn’t com­ing up on the cusp of yet an­oth­er elec­tion. In 2013, it came up on the cusp of an elec­tion, in 2021 the same, and now, in 2023, To­ba­go is see­ing the dan­gling car­rot of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion on­ly be­cause an elec­tion is on the hori­zon.”

Au­gus­tine vowed that his team would not use promis­es of self-gov­er­nance or the fight for au­ton­o­my for po­lit­i­cal gain.

Mean­while, PDP leader Wat­son Duke ar­gued the chief sec­re­tary should lead the charge and sug­gest­ed three op­tions—in­de­pen­dence, au­ton­o­my, or as­so­ci­a­tion—when the bills re­turn to Par­lia­ment. Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil An­cil Den­nis said he would com­ment on Au­gus­tine’s ad­dress soon.