Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine has re­vealed that the To­ba­go Peo­ple Par­ty (TPP), of which he is the in­ter­im leader, is strate­gis­ing to go af­ter the two par­lia­men­tary seats in To­ba­go to use them as lever­age to get au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go.

In a one-on-one in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia’s Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor, Samp­son Nan­ton at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex in To­ba­go on Thurs­day, Au­gus­tine said he was con­fi­dent the TPP can win the seats and hold what he called “the bar­gain­ing chip for To­ba­go” and “the gold­en tick­et” for some­one.

He al­so said he be­lieves he has tried his best to be ac­com­mo­dat­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley with whom he now has strained re­la­tions, but does not see it nec­es­sary to seek to mend re­la­tions at this time. The key el­e­ments of the hour-long in­ter­view are cov­ered in this ques­tion-and-an­swer seg­ment.

Have you heard from the po­lice since the search of your house?

I have not heard any­thing from the po­lice. The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty has made con­tact with my lawyers. The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has al­so re­spond­ed to my lawyers and ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of our query and in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but we have not heard any­thing from the TTPS.

Is it still an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as far as you are aware?

Well, as far as I am aware, they don’t know what they are do­ing, I don’t know what they are do­ing, and cer­tain­ly, with my lawyers, I will be press­ing this is­sue fur­ther be­cause, as you may be aware, I did call for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry in­to the mat­ters at hand.

Will you be pa­tient with it or will you be press­ing for it to be con­clud­ed?

I won’t be pa­tient with it be­cause I am con­cerned by what the whistle­blow­er shared with me, and I’m con­cerned be­cause when he ini­tial­ly shared that piece of in­for­ma­tion, I sat on it for a few days un­til I saw two in­ter­sec­tions be­tween what he was say­ing and what was ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. It was from the so-called whistle­blow­er that I first learnt of an In­spec­tor Weaver Ali, nev­er heard of this per­son be­fore. It was from the whistle­blow­er that I learnt that the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion was re­lat­ed to mat­ters in­ter­nal to the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, the po­lit­i­cal par­ty and not the THA gov­ern­ment and the ex­ec­u­tive gov­ern­ment of the THA and then when I saw the war­rants and the pro­duc­tion or­ders then I re­alised there may be some truth to what the whistle­blow­er was say­ing and I shared it with the pub­lic. So I’m con­cerned that to date, we have not had an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry to ver­i­fy the con­cerns of the whistle­blow­er.

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine replies to a question from Sampson Nanton, GML’s Deputy Managing Editor, during an interview at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex in Tobago, on Thursday.

VINDRA GOPAUL-BOODAN

So was there any re­sponse to your call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the whistle­blow­er’s claims?

No re­sponse, and you know what is be­yond strange is that im­me­di­ate­ly we got some press con­fer­ences try­ing to de­ny the claim, but I don’t know that any crim­i­nal, any thief, will ad­mit that they did some­thing wrong. So I don’t know that those who are ac­cused can com­fort us by say­ing, ‘No, we were not in­volved in the way the whistle­blow­er has in­di­cat­ed’. And that is why I have called for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry, and I have not re­ceived to date any in­di­ca­tion that that is hap­pen­ing. How­ev­er, we have re­ceived ac­knowl­edge­ment from the po­lice com­plaints au­thor­i­ty and the in­tegri­ty com­mis­sion that we are not­ing the in­for­ma­tion that we have sent to them and that in due course, in a more sub­stan­tive man­ner, they will re­spond to the claims, but so far as the TTPS, we have not. And what is al­so strange in all of this I on­ly found out that the whistle­blow­er was, in fact, a claimant in the case, was, in fact, a wit­ness, or the wit­ness in the case from the Prime Min­is­ter, not the po­lice. I did, in fact, ask In­spec­tor Weaver, when she came to the Chief Sec­re­tary’s res­i­dence if she could fur­nish me with a copy of the sworn state­ment that pre­ced­ed the war­rant to which she re­fused. So I had no way of ver­i­fy­ing whether or not the whistle­blow­er was, in fact, the wit­ness as he claimed he was. That was con­firmed by the Prime Min­is­ter. Strange enough that the Prime Min­is­ter was able to con­firm that. What I al­so find strange is that the Prime Min­is­ter, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, per­son­al lawyer of the Prime Min­is­ter and the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM To­ba­go, they are call­ing the wit­ness a liar in this mat­ter, but some­how, what he claimed against me is true. But what he claimed against them is a lie. And that’s the au­dac­i­ty and the hypocrisy in all of it.

Have you for­ward­ed the video and oth­er ev­i­dence you have to the po­lice?

We wrote them, we in­di­cat­ed what we have, we shared some el­e­ments of the tran­script of the record­ing, we in­di­cat­ed that the record­ing is much more ex­ten­sive than that and be­cause it im­pli­cates the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, we are ask­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice can­not in­ves­ti­gate her­self, and cer­tain­ly, for there to be in­ves­ti­ga­tion of what com­mu­ni­ca­tion oc­curred be­tween these par­ties and the wit­ness, it means that I will like to see the po­lice go in and seize the de­vices of those per­sons that the whistle­blow­er, the wit­ness, has im­pli­cat­ed. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice can’t her­self do that in­ves­ti­ga­tion if she is im­pli­cat­ed in the mat­ter. And that is why we have called for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry.

And this in­de­pen­dent in­quiry should be con­duct­ed by whom?

The in­de­pen­dent in­quiry has to have some in­puts from the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. It should have some in­put from the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic. It should have some in­puts from the Of­fice of the DPP, but cer­tain­ly, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice her­self has to ex­empt her­self from the process since she her­self is im­pli­cat­ed. And that per­haps rais­es a larg­er ques­tion of who guards the guards and do we have sys­tems in place to guard those who are re­spon­si­ble for ex­e­cut­ing jus­tice or are they above and be­yond the reach­es of the jus­tice sys­tem.

FILE: Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly Farley Augustine looks on as then-Acting President Christine Kangaloo swears in Dr Faith B Yisrael at President’s House, Trinidad in September 2022.

Are peo­ple not ques­tion­ing your cred­i­bil­i­ty in bring­ing for­ward all of this re­gard­ing the whistle­blow­er?

The de­bate about the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the whistle­blow­er comes from on­ly one quar­ters, that’s the PNM camp. But be­yond that, if the whistle­blow­er is not cred­i­ble enough to bring that in­for­ma­tion to me, is he cred­i­ble enough to bring in­for­ma­tion against me to the po­lice that, in turn, war­rants were got from the court to be ex­e­cut­ed? So we can’t ques­tion the whistle­blow­er’s cred­i­bil­i­ty on one end when he shares in­for­ma­tion with me that is not favourable to the PNM, but he is valid if he shares in­for­ma­tion that is against me. That, to me, is a ridicu­lous­ness in the en­tire ar­gu­ment. The prime min­is­ter is say­ing he is the wit­ness, which sug­gests to me that he is the on­ly wit­ness in the mat­ter and if he is the on­ly wit­ness in the mat­ter and he vol­un­tar­i­ly shared that in­for­ma­tion with me. And you know what I get a lot from To­bag­o­ni­ans? I get a lot of prayers. When I walk the vil­lages when I meet with the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ties, I get from them, ‘Chief, you ought to fight back’ be­cause they are see­ing this not so much as a per­se­cu­tion of Far­ley the in­di­vid­ual but a dis­rup­tion of the THA and to de­stroy the in­sti­tu­tion that so many To­bag­o­ni­ans fought for. To­bag­o­ni­anas are stand­ing up and say­ing that, ‘No, you can’t fight to de­stroy the THA be­cause we did not vote for you.”

And all of this falls in­to the back­drop where the prime min­is­ter did say at one point that he will not for­give To­bag­o­ni­ans if we vot­ed for Wat­son Duke and his team. And that is still etched in our mem­o­ries, that we are not for­giv­en be­cause we vote against the PNM. And all of this is a part of that plot to de­stroy so that they can re­tain pow­er.

Is it your view that be­cause you de­feat­ed the PNM it has led to an all-out at­tack against you?

Most cer­tain­ly, but more than that. To­ba­go is per­haps the small­est equa­tion in the coun­try by virtue of the num­ber of seats we have in the Par­lia­ment. But To­ba­go per­haps has the two most im­por­tant seats in the Par­lia­ment. And for the PNM, they be­lieve if we are to win the two To­ba­go seats, it stymies their chances of hold­ing on to gov­ern­ment in Trinidad, giv­en the close mar­gins be­tween them and the UNC. To­ba­go might very well have the gold­en tick­et for some­body, but that is not our con­cern. For us in To­ba­go, our ma­jor con­cern re­al­ly is the is­sue of greater au­ton­o­my in To­ba­go. And from where we sit, we wish to use our two seats as ne­go­ti­at­ing tools by which we can achieve greater au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go, get leg­isla­tive au­ton­o­my that we have been quar­relling for, for ages.

Do you be­lieve you can win the two seats?

Yes, I do. I’m pret­ty con­fi­dent that we can.

Have you giv­en thought to where these seats would go if the elec­tion were to be called now?

Well, the seats won’t go any­where be­cause I can be quite open about what our po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy is, which is our two seats must be used to ne­go­ti­ate au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go. I don’t be­lieve you get that by be­ing part of any Cab­i­net. We’re not in­ter­est­ed in Cab­i­nets ... form­ing a Cab­i­net or be­ing part of any gov­ern­ment, or be­ing giv­en any big rank or port­fo­lio. What we want is to use our two seats as bar­gain­ing chips to say, ‘Look, you can get our sup­port if we in To­ba­go can get these need­ed changes to the leg­is­la­tion, to Act 40 of 1996, if we can use these to get con­sti­tu­tion­al change that will af­ford To­ba­go its au­ton­o­my. So for us, we re­al­ly have no con­cern, no care about join­ing any po­lit­i­cal par­ty any­where or go­ing to form a col­lab­o­ra­tion with any­body, part­ner­ship, but cer­tain­ly wish to use our two seats in a man­ner that will af­ford To­ba­go the kind of au­ton­o­my it has been fight­ing for for don­key years.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley met with Chief Secretary Farley Augustine at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Blenheim, Tobago in February 2022.

PRIME MINISTER FACEBOOK PAGE

Are the two seats where the fo­cus is di­rect­ed now?

As a mat­ter of fact, our di­rec­tion has not been fo­cussed enough on that. For us in To­ba­go, un­less you live in To­ba­go you wouldn’t un­der­stand this de­sire for au­ton­o­my. A lot of our progress is stymied by the fact that we don’t have it. Even with­in the Com­mon­wealth of Na­tions, there ex­ists sev­er­al ex­am­ples of de­vo­lu­tion of pow­ers. You go to the Unit­ed King­dom, Scot­land, Wales, they can pass their own laws there, they col­lect their own tax­es, they can man­age their own tax­a­tion ef­forts, but they’re still part of the Unit­ed King­dom. You go to St Kitts and Nevis with­in the re­gion, they have a fed­er­a­tion. So T&T does not have to rein­vent the wheel in so far as the de­vo­lu­tion of pow­ers. And it’s hyp­o­crit­i­cal to talk about the great val­ue of de­cen­tral­is­ing gov­ern­ment through lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­forms and at the same time look to To­ba­go and say, ‘We want to con­tin­ue to con­trol you. We want to de­cide for you when a ho­tel should be built and where a ho­tel should go. We want to de­cide for you if a for­eign­er can pur­chase land in To­ba­go or not, and that can­not be fair.

The UNC has been voic­ing a lot of sup­port for your par­ty. Do you see any dan­gers in that, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the UNC’s his­to­ry with To­ba­go?

The TPP, of which I am the in­ter­im leader, is not align­ing with any­body. Any­body can sup­port what we pro­pose. In fact, any­body sen­si­ble will sup­port what we pro­pose. I have had meet­ings with trade union lead­ers, and I have got­ten mas­sive sup­port from trade union lead­ers across the space. But we are not align­ing with any­body. Who­ev­er wants to sup­port our ide­olo­gies, that’s all great. As a mat­ter of fact, for there to be con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, it will re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, so I need both par­ties in Trinidad, both ma­jor par­ties to align them­selves with a vi­sion for a much more au­tonomous To­ba­go. Nat­u­ral­ly, the PNM is our biggest ad­ver­sary be­cause they were the ones we de­feat­ed in the last elec­tion. Not just de­feat­ed, they were the ones we gave some bad licks in the last elec­tion, so nat­u­ral­ly, they find them­selves as our ad­ver­sary, but we are not align­ing to any­one. As I in­di­cat­ed, our strat­e­gy, and we think what’s best for To­ba­go, is that To­ba­go stands alone. To­ba­go wins when To­ba­go stands alone.

You ap­peared to have had a very har­mo­nious re­la­tion­ship with the PM at the start of your tenure. What went wrong?

When we won the elec­tion, it took al­most a month be­fore the prime min­is­ter first reached out to me, and I think it was Ho­choy Charles who I saw say­ing pub­licly that Sec­tion 31 of the THA Act says that the PM and the Chief Sec­re­tary should have reg­u­lar meet­ings and we had our first meet­ing which was a ca­su­al, sit down, break the ice, no mat­ters of state, just to be hu­man be­ings, as two broth­ers so to speak, try­ing to say well we had a bruis­ing elec­tion sea­son, let’s see how we can work be­yond that. I have tried, I have tried my best to be ac­com­mo­dat­ing. What irks me, though, is that you get this pub­lic im­pres­sion, ‘You know we want to work with you all’, and then qui­et­ly, they turn their backs and ig­nore you. So the pub­lic be­lieves they’re get­ting along. In fact, some of my own sup­port­ers start­ed cas­ti­gat­ing me be­cause they start­ed be­liev­ing, like Mr Duke, that some­how the prime min­is­ter buy out Far­ley head, thief Far­ley head as they say and that Far­ley gone against. Far­ley looks like he is align­ing with the PNM. And that’s be­cause, by na­ture, I open my doors to any­body. In fact, if the prime min­is­ter writes now and says he wish­es to meet, I will af­ford him that meet­ing. In fact, the law says that we ought to.

So has it been hap­pen­ing by the law?

It was hap­pen­ing by the law. Our last meet­ing was over the mat­ter of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor so that was about two months ago be­fore things es­ca­lat­ed.

Dr Jefferson Davidson, now deceased, a former chairman of the Tobago House of Assembly, left, being presented with the Tobago Medal of Honour Gold from Chief Secretary Farley Augustine in February 2023.

How of­ten does the law say you should meet?

The law does not pre­scribe a time, it just says fre­quent­ly, so fre­quen­cy is rel­a­tive. So for me once there is a meet­ing I will re­spect­ful­ly en­gage time-per­mit­ting. I don’t have an is­sue about those things. Am I sur­prised about the re­la­tion­ship go­ing down­hill? I can’t say that I am be­cause we have been here be­fore. We had Ho­choy vs Pan­day, we had Orville Lon­don vs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. We have been here be­fore. This is not new to To­ba­go. So those from the PNM try­ing to make it look like this is new, the Chief Sec­re­tary should know his place, we have been here be­fore. And I very well know my place, as did all the pre­vi­ous chief sec­re­taries who had run-ins with prime min­is­ters in Trinidad. You see, part of the prob­lem is that To­ba­go is al­most se­mi-au­tonomous. The law, through Sec­tion 27 of the THA Act, gives To­ba­go full rights and priv­i­leges to ex­e­cute all poli­cies re­gard­ing a list of ar­eas in the fifth sched­ule. A prime min­is­ter or a cab­i­net are ac­cus­tomed to be­ing lord over all that he or she sur­veys, ex­cept when he gets to To­ba­go and recog­nis­es there is an ex­ec­u­tive here that makes de­ci­sions for the is­land. A prime min­is­ter or a cab­i­net can­not get that kind of push­back from any­body any­where else in the coun­try, so you will un­der­stand how when­ev­er there is a dif­fer­ent par­ty in To­ba­go than in Trinidad, there will be, at some junc­ture, con­flict. The con­flict is nat­ur­al. It’s bound to hap­pen.

What is the so­lu­tion to bring about bet­ter di­a­logue with the PM?

It’s not nec­es­sary for me. All I want is for To­ba­go to be left alone to man­age its own af­fairs. Whether the PM says hi to me, whether he shakes my hand, whether we knock glass or not, those are in­con­se­quen­tial to the mat­ters at hand be­cause the re­al­i­ty is some­day Dr Row­ley will not be there, and Far­ley Au­gus­tine will not be here. And when we are not here, the in­sti­tu­tion that is the THA must con­tin­ue to strive. And I will say this, if the PNM is in pow­er here and now and they are hav­ing chal­lenges with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and the in­cur­sions from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, they will get my sup­port. As a mat­ter of fact, in 2013, all of To­ba­go sup­port­ed the PNM be­cause we were against such in­cur­sions com­ing from Trinidad. The same holds true to­day. It can’t be that in 2013 you will protest a prime min­is­ter com­ing to a church ser­vice in Ply­mouth on a Sun­day morn­ing, but in 2023, it is ok for a prime min­is­ter to de­cide and dic­tate for To­ba­go how the is­land should be run. The two can­not be squared. That is hypocrisy, and I be­lieve it is my right to call the PNM out on such hypocrisy.