The Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly have both pledged to work close­ly to­geth­er to en­sure the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

They al­so have re­it­er­at­ed their shared com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing the leg­isla­tive and op­er­a­tional re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC and THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine met yes­ter­day (May 27, 2025) in a marathon five-hour meet­ing dur­ing which the PM was ap­prised of a range of long-stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go, many of which he said arose from years of ne­glect un­der the for­mer PNM Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Chief Sec­re­tary not­ed that some of the con­cerns he high­light­ed could be de­scribed as “low-hang­ing fruits” which present op­por­tu­ni­ties for im­me­di­ate and col­lab­o­ra­tive in­ter­ven­tion.

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the PM’s Of­fice re­ports that dis­cus­sions fo­cused on sev­er­al key ar­eas, in­clud­ing:

• To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my and right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

• Ex­pand­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ty;

• Op­er­a­tional and in­fra­struc­tur­al mat­ters re­lat­ing to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, land ti­tles, Town and Coun­try Plan­ning, and tourism.

• The con­struc­tion of the Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School;

• The air and sea bridges;

• Ex­port li­cence for the Stud­ley Park Quar­ry;

• The need for con­tin­u­ous con­sul­ta­tion with the peo­ple of To­ba­go;

• Spe­cial fo­cus on the Pub­lic Ser­vice;

• Oth­er mat­ters re­lat­ed to the Fifth, Sixth and Sev­enth Sched­ules of Act 40 of 1996.

“This meet­ing rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant shift in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. It ush­ers in a new era of con­tin­u­ous di­a­logue, mu­tu­al re­spect, and pur­pose­ful co­op­er­a­tion,” the re­lease stat­ed.

It said the THA Chief Sec­re­tary sig­nalled To­ba­go’s readi­ness “to work hand in hand with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment” to ad­vance T&T’s over­all de­vel­op­ment.

In ad­di­tion, both lead­ers reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to “good gov­er­nance and to de­liv­er­ing mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment for ALL the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Al­so in­volved in the dis­cus­sions were Bar­ry Padarath MP, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett, Leader of As­sem­bly Busi­ness in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.