GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine will be sworn in to­day as the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and there are hints Au­gus­tine may al­so be THA’s Sec­re­tary for Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my.

It’s con­firmed that PDP po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke won’t be in charge of the Fi­nance Di­vi­sion.

While Duke was tipped re­cent­ly to be deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, con­cerns have now arisen about po­ten­tial for con­flict of in­ter­est fol­low­ing Wednes­day’s an­nounce­ment by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, which Duke heads, that he’ll con­tin­ue union du­ties, though with­out re­mu­ner­a­tion.

The sce­nar­ios arose yes­ter­day, ahead of to­day’s launch of the 12th THA.

The event fol­lows Mon­day’s THA elec­tion where the PDP shat­tered the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s 21-year con­trol of the As­sem­bly, win­ning 14 of the 15 seats.

Tues­day’s re­counts in two seats left the re­sults un­changed, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion con­firmed yes­ter­day.

Yes­ter­day, PNM of­fi­cials hint­ed that con­sid­er­a­tion “is be­ing giv­en” in the camp to hav­ing de­feat­ed To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine ap­point­ed the coun­cil­lor for the PNM in the new THA. There are, how­ev­er, mixed views on this giv­en the mag­ni­tude of Mon­day’s de­feat.

To­day’s func­tion will be­gin at 11 am at the Mag­dale­na Grand ho­tel, where Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes will ad­min­is­ter the oath of of­fice to the 14 win­ning PDP can­di­dates and sole PNM can­di­date Kelvon Mor­ris.

Mor­ris, who won the Dar­ryl Spring/Whim seat, will be the PNM’s Mi­nor­i­ty Leader in the THA.

From Mag­dale­na Grand, the gath­er­ing shifts to the THA’s leg­is­la­ture build­ing in Scar­bor­ough, where a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer and Deputy Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer will be elect­ed.

These of­fi­cials will then pre­side over the elec­tion of a Chief Sec­re­tary and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary and four coun­cil­lors—three for the PDP and one for the PNM.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told that coun­cil­lors don’t all have to be sworn in to­day.

Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, the PDP had pro­mot­ed Au­gus­tine as the choice for Chief Sec­re­tary.

Au­gus­tine is due to get mar­ried Sun­day.

Whether Au­gus­tine be­comes Fi­nance Sec­re­tary or the PDP ap­points one from its coun­cil­lors will be known to­day.

PDP’s coun­cil­lors are tipped to in­clude a re­tired pub­lic ser­vant.

To­mor­row, the THA’s Sec­re­taries for the As­sem­bly’s 10 port­fo­lios will be sworn in at the Leg­is­la­ture Build­ing.

PDP sources said de­spite the PNM claim­ing Duke would be Sec­re­tary for Fi­nance, he won’t be ap­point­ed there.

PDP can­di­dates who held shad­ow port­fo­lios dur­ing the cam­paign are ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed to the cor­re­spond­ing di­vi­sions in the As­sem­bly.

Among those tipped are Faith B Yis­rael (Sec­re­tary for Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment), Zor­isha Hack­ett (Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy), Pas­tor Ter­rance Baynes (Tourism, Cul­ture and Trans­porta­tion) and Trevor James (Set­tle­ments, Ur­ban Re­new­al and Pub­lic Util­i­ties).

Oth­er port­fo­lios are Fi­nance and Econ­o­my, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment and Labour, Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry and Fish­eries, In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and the En­vi­ron­ment, Sport and Youth Af­fairs.

Ex-TOP mem­ber “hum­bled to serve”

Yes­ter­day, PDP Bethel New Grange can­di­date Ter­rance Baynes, who con­firmed he’d been a for­mer To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) mem­ber, added he was hum­bled to have been elect­ed to serve.

Baynes was suc­cess­ful as the PDP Ma­son Hall-Mo­ri­ah can­di­date.

The TOP was part of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment over 2010-2015.

Baynes was pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer un­der the Ash­worth Jack-led TOP.

In the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tions, the TOP won To­ba­go East and West with Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin and Dr Del­mon Bak­er.

Baynes was a PP Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor over June 2011 to Sep­tem­ber 2012.

The TOP lost its THA seats to PNM in 2013 and both To­ba­go seats al­so. The TOP joined the One To­ba­go Voice coali­tion in May 2019.

PNM’s lone ranger—Mor­ris

The PNM’s Mor­ris, who will be the PNM’s lone rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the THA for the next four years, said, “This isn’t an un­fa­mil­iar sit­u­a­tion for To­ba­go PNM. In 1984, the late William McKen­zie was the PNM’s sole rep­re­sen­ta­tive. The PNM is con­sis­tent­ly re­silient and will emerge stronger from this.”

The PDP had asked the EBC for a re­count in Dar­ryl Spring where Mor­ris won.

But the EBC sub­se­quent­ly stat­ed there was no change in the votes re­ceived.

The PNM’s Buc­coo-Mt Pleas­ant can­di­date An­cil Den­nis had al­so sought a re­count. He had ob­tained 922 votes to PDP can­di­date Son­ny Craig’s 924. But the EBC stat­ed Craig got one more vote than he had be­fore the re­count.

The PNM sources said the ap­point­ment of a PNM coun­cil­lor to the THA was to have been raised at a meet­ing of the PNM’s can­di­dates yes­ter­day but this was resched­uled to Mon­day.

They couldn’t say if re­port­ed calls for David­son-Ce­les­tine to step down may be dis­cussed there.

Yes­ter­day, PNM vice-chair­man De­on Isaac said he wasn’t aware that the coun­cil­lor po­si­tion had been de­cid­ed on.

On who rep­re­sents the PNM’s lead­er­ship at to­day’s in­au­gu­ra­tion, he said he ex­pect­ed David­son-Ce­les­tine to.

There was no re­ply from the Gov­ern­ment on whether Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley would at­tend.

On whether calls had been made for David­son-Ce­les­tine to re­sign, Isaac said he wasn’t aware of this and res­ig­na­tion should be a mat­ter for her to de­cide up­on. He said the main les­son they learned from the elec­tion was that they need­ed to have been ground­ed more in­ti­mate­ly with the pub­lic.

“But PNM’s still very strong in To­ba­go. We’re re­group­ing, re­build­ing and mov­ing on.”

UNC: PM must step down and call gen­er­al elec­tions now

Yes­ter­day, the Op­po­si­tion UNC called for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­sign and call gen­er­al elec­tions fol­low­ing Mon­day’s THA elec­tion re­sults.

The UNC stat­ed that To­ba­go had re­ject­ed Row­ley’s “dic­ta­tor­ship, bul­ly­ing, greed, in­com­pe­tence, cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism” and oth­er is­sues.

The UNC said the re­sults raised ques­tions about the le­git­i­ma­cy of the PNM To­ba­go East and West MPs in Par­lia­ment.

“These MPs clear­ly have now lost any le­git­i­ma­cy that they may have once had.

“Even Row­ley’s own home con­stituen­cy of Ma­son Hall po­lit­i­cal­ly ran him out, if Kei­th Row­ley can­not win in To­ba­go, what use is he to the PNM? Imag­ine that un­der its first To­bag­on­ian leader, the PNM lost its 20-year hold on To­ba­go.

“That points to the deep dis­dain and dis­ap­proval that the peo­ple of both Trinidad and To­ba­go have of Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley who must step down now as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader as we’re aware that many in the par­ty are call­ing for. Row­ley must al­so step down as Prime Min­is­ter and call fresh elec­tions.”

UNC MP Dr Rudy In­dars­ingh, com­ment­ing on whether UNC would sup­port se­ces­sion for To­ba­go as PDP leader Wat­son Duke raised on the cam­paign trail, said Duke would have to ad­dress it in the cur­rent sce­nario and flesh out and ar­tic­u­late his po­si­tion and that “would have to be di­gest­ed by all and sundry.”

He said the UNC was com­mit­ted to a uni­tary T&T but sup­ports au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go and that To­bag­o­ni­ans must de­cide their is­sues.

He said the UNC stat­ed this in de­bate on the To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill.