Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer To­ba­go of­fi­cials have ex­pressed their sup­port for Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s call for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my. How­ev­er, some of them are scep­ti­cal about the un­der­ly­ing mo­ti­va­tions be­hind this un­ex­pect­ed sup­port.

Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, for­mer THA pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer and leader of the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), said the in­ad­e­qua­cy of cur­rent bills needs to be ad­dressed. Con­ver­sa­tions need to be had about crit­i­cal is­sues such as leg­isla­tive over­sight, bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions, and bor­der de­f­i­n­i­tions be­fore rush­ing any de­fec­tive bill un­der the guise of au­ton­o­my that could trig­ger an ear­ly elec­tion, she said.

“As a for­mer mem­ber of the Sen­ate and as the pres­i­dent, she should have re­spect for the crit­i­cal role of a sen­ate in pro­tect­ing the rights, priv­i­leges, and wel­fare of the cit­i­zen­ry in all laws that are made,” Tsoiafatt-An­gus added.

“Giv­en the tur­moil that has set up­on To­ba­go over the last three years and the var­i­ous sec­tions of the bill that are fast be­com­ing ob­so­lete, the IDA is plead­ing with Her Ex­cel­len­cy to cau­tion the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from rush­ing a de­fec­tive bill un­der the guise of pur­su­ing au­ton­o­my just to trig­ger an ear­ly elec­tion. Out­stand­ing con­ver­sa­tions are nec­es­sary on a sen­ate-like func­tion in mak­ing as­sem­bly laws, leg­isla­tive over­sight, bor­der de­f­i­n­i­tions, and bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions - all of which are crit­i­cal to Trinidad and To­ba­go walk­ing the talk of side by side we stand.”

His­to­ri­an, Dr Ri­ta Pem­ber­ton be­lieves the term “au­ton­o­my” is be­ing mis­used, and there is no clear un­der­stand­ing of what it means. Pem­ber­ton said the is­sues need to be clar­i­fied be­fore any dis­cus­sion at the par­lia­men­tary lev­el.

Pem­ber­ton was a mem­ber of the Work­ing Com­mit­tee of the Sub-Com­mit­tee to Re­vise the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act and the Po­si­tion of To­ba­go in the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go from 2008-2012.

“As far as I re­call, there is a bill un­der dis­cus­sion. So now, if that bill doesn’t pro­vide you with what you want­ed, what do we do go­ing for­ward?” she asked.

“I’m not sure there is a spe­cif­ic role for the Pres­i­dent ex­cept at the fi­nal stage. I’m not aware that the Pres­i­dent has pow­ers to in­ter­vene oth­er than at the stage where af­ter it has been ap­proved in the Par­lia­ment, the Pres­i­dent is the per­son who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for hand­ing over.

“I’m not sure how she pro­pos­es to in­ter­vene ex­cept that she has the pow­er to have pe­ri­od­i­cal dis­cus­sions with the Prime Min­is­ter. Those are the oc­ca­sions she would raise the is­sues with him. Oth­er than that, I’m not aware she has any kind of pow­er to make this process go any faster. Maybe it is and we are not aware, but on­ly time will re­veal that.

“But I do think it is crit­i­cal to have a clear un­der­stand­ing of what au­ton­o­my means and what au­ton­o­my is pro­posed for To­ba­go at this point. That is not clear, and the ex­pec­ta­tion might be dif­fer­ent.”

Dr East­lyn Kate McKen­zie, who sat on a com­mit­tee to pro­duce the au­ton­o­my re­port dur­ing her time as a sen­a­tor, told Guardian Me­dia she wasn’t shocked by the Pres­i­dent’s call for au­ton­o­my.

“I have been on the jour­ney with this amend­ment to the THA Act and all of that. We in­ter­viewed peo­ple in Trinidad and we went all over To­ba­go,” she said.

“I am sat­is­fied with the con­tri­bu­tion I would have made in the Sen­ate, in cul­ture. I leave it to the younger ones. I am very hap­py to know, to lis­ten and un­der­stand that I’m still here and that I could hear a pres­i­dent take this step.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, for­mer To­ba­go MP and gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Pamela Nichol­son won­dered whether the Pres­i­dent’s move was a knee-jerk re­ac­tion to Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s dis­ap­point­ment af­ter the Pres­i­dent failed to raise the mat­ter of au­ton­o­my at the open­ing of Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this month.

How­ev­er, Nichol­son said she still has the willpow­er and en­er­gy to re­turn to the fight for au­ton­o­my. She said she would walk side by side with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine in this con­tin­ued jour­ney. But, she feels con­fi­dent that To­ba­go now has a bet­ter chance with the Pres­i­dent’s com­mit­ment to push for the decades-old self-gov­er­nance dream.

At­tempts to reach for­mer Chief Sec­re­taries Kelvin Charles and Ho­choy Charles were un­suc­cess­ful. For­mer Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don pre­ferred not to com­ment.