For­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles has warned the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive against tak­ing any ac­tion against Wat­son Duke at this time. His cau­tion came yes­ter­day, even as the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots said Far­ley Au­gus­tine could face fur­ther cen­sure from the par­ty.

In an in­ter­view on Tues­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he and his team had dis­cussed strip­ping Duke of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in his port­fo­lio as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

Yes­ter­day, the THA ex­ec­u­tive held a reg­u­lar meet­ing and Duke was ex­pect­ed to at­tend the vir­tu­al ses­sion to re­spond to the con­cerns of his fel­low mem­bers re­gard­ing his be­hav­iour.

How­ev­er, up to press time Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the meet­ing was still on­go­ing. It was al­so un­clear if Duke logged in to the meet­ing, as mem­bers in the meet­ing kept the mat­ter close to their chests.

When Guardian Me­dia spoke with Duke briefly via What­sApp yes­ter­day and asked if the meet­ing was still tak­ing place, he said “Ask Far­ley.”

When asked if he at­tend­ed the meet­ing, Duke did not re­ply.

Mes­sages to Au­gus­tine mean­while went unan­swered. How­ev­er, it is ex­pect­ed that the mat­ter will be ad­dressed at the post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing to­day

But for­mer THA chief sec­re­tary Charles, who said he had no idea what would bring the im­passe to an end, said he does not agree with any ac­tion against Duke.

“Any de­ci­sion you make when you are an­gry, you are un­der emo­tion­al stress, is a de­ci­sion that you are bound to re­gret,” he said.

Charles ex­pressed the view, how­ev­er, that rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is not im­pos­si­ble.

“I am al­so pre­pared to have a con­ver­sa­tion with them,” Charles said.

He said the THA ex­ec­u­tive should al­low the mat­ter some time so there can be in­ter­ven­tions.

Mean­while, ear­li­er yes­ter­day, PDP ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil chair­man Sean Nedd, in a state­ment on be­half of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil on To­ba­go Up­dates Morn­ing Show, said Au­gus­tine could face more ac­tion from the par­ty.

“The PDP and its ex­ec­u­tive must main­tain or­der in its ranks like any oth­er par­ty and will con­sid­er dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion on the for­mer deputy po­lit­i­cal leader if need­ed,” Nedd said.

The sit­u­a­tion arose af­ter Duke post­ed a video on so­cial me­dia crit­i­cis­ing Au­gus­tine and the THA ex­ec­u­tive, ac­cus­ing them of aban­don­ing a group of 27 mem­bers of the Rox­bor­ough Folk Group who were re­port­ed­ly strand­ed in New York last week.

The group ar­rived in the Unit­ed States on Sep­tem­ber 3, af­ter the THA paid over $300,000 to a trav­el agency to cov­er their flights. The fol­low­ing day, it was learnt they had nowhere to stay, so an ad­di­tion­al cost of US$9,000 was in­curred by the THA to pay for ac­com­mo­da­tion.

But on Sep­tem­ber 7, Duke sent a video to Au­gus­tine in­di­cat­ing the group had no food. The video was lat­er post­ed to so­cial me­dia.

Charles has con­clud­ed that what is be­ing raised by Duke has no ev­i­dence to sup­port it, as the group would have been aware of the lev­el of sup­port to be pro­vid­ed by the THA pri­or to leav­ing To­ba­go. He felt there was an ul­te­ri­or mo­tive be­hind the video.

“But you make a video of that and send it out in the pub­lic do­main, so that seemed not to have been the cause of this lit­tle prob­lem be­tween them. I think Mr Duke, be­ing the leader of the par­ty, want­ed to get rid of the Chief Sec­re­tary,” Charles said.

Ac­cord­ing to Charles, Duke’s plan could have been to ex­pel Au­gus­tine from the PDP af­ter al­ready re­mov­ing him as deputy leader.

This would then ren­der Au­gus­tine’s seat va­cant based on Sec­tion 49 sub­sec­tion 2E of the Con­sti­tu­tion and a bye-elec­tion would have had to be held in three months. In this sce­nario, dur­ing this time, the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary would have been in con­trol of the THA.

How­ev­er, Charles said, “But he now recog­nis­es, or is now recog­nis­ing, that that pro­vi­sion is on­ly for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, not the THA so it back­fired on him.”

As it re­lates to the mo­tion of no con­fi­dence that Au­gus­tine dared Duke to file against him, Charles said the law re­gard­ing such a move is clear.

“So, if a vote of no con­fi­dence is moved in the Chief Sec­re­tary and it is car­ried with­in two days by law, the same sec­tion 35, the Chief Sec­re­tary must re­sign,” he ex­plained.

Charles added that if a res­ig­na­tion is not forth­com­ing, then the Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go would re­voke the ap­point­ment. He said it is the same process for a Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

How­ev­er, as it stands, al­though he is no longer on the PDP ex­ec­u­tive, Charles said Au­gus­tine’s po­si­tion as Chief Sec­re­tary is not un­der threat.

“Re­mov­ing the Chief Sec­re­tary as Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the par­ty does not af­fect the Chief Sec­re­tary di­rect­ly or re­move him from of­fice,” Charles said.

Mean­while, Au­gus­tine car­ried out his du­ties yes­ter­day de­spite the im­broglio, meet­ing with deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert to dis­cuss the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for the THA for the fis­cal year 2023.