Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day ques­tioned whether Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine would get any new in­for­ma­tion on the is­sue of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go dur­ing his vis­it to St Kitts and Nevis with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She made the com­ment hours af­ter Au­gus­tine said he had ac­cept­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­vi­ta­tion to go be­cause St Kitts fea­tured a sim­i­lar type of gov­er­nance struc­ture and talks with of­fi­cials there could help To­ba­go in build­ing out its frame­work for au­ton­o­my.

How­ev­er, not­ing the St Kitts mod­el was vis­it­ed dur­ing the PNM’s term in of­fice, Robin­son-Reg­is, yes­ter­day said, “I have no ob­jec­tion to the THA Chief Sec­re­tary’s vis­it to St Kitts, my con­cern lies with the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that St Kitts/Nevis has a sim­i­lar con­sti­tu­tion­al struc­ture to T&T and there could be ‘valu­able lessons for To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance.’ I’m con­cerned about the ‘re­vi­sion’ of his­to­ry.”

She added, “Hav­ing served as chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my Bill, dur­ing the JSC’s con­sid­er­a­tion of the bill un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment, the same Chief Sec­re­tary, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, re­ject­ed the St Kitts/Nevis mod­el. The com­mit­tee ben­e­fit­ed from guid­ance from De­lano Bart, KC, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of St Kitts/Nevis. It’s quite re­mark­able the St Kitts/Nevis mod­el is now be­ing ref­er­enced as though the pre­vi­ous par­lia­men­tary ini­tia­tives had not thor­ough­ly re­viewed, adopt­ed use­ful el­e­ments, and built up­on them. Even more sur­pris­ing is the same Chief Sec­re­tary and the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter, who pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed these pro­pos­als, now seem open to us­ing St Kitts/Nevis as a mod­el.”

Mean­while, re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Pe­ter Wick­ham, fo­cus­ing on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance at the Cari­com meet­ing, said it was a wel­come de­vel­op­ment.

How­ev­er, he not­ed, “Her ap­par­ent es­trange­ment from Cari­com has been a ma­jor chal­lenge. It’s cu­ri­ous the first meet­ing she’s at­tend­ing is al­so the first be­ing at­tend­ed by US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio. It’s as though this meet­ing has a rel­e­vance to her which pre­vi­ous­ly didn’t ex­ist when her or­di­nary Cari­com broth­ers and sis­ters at­tend­ed. I have no doubt she’s at­tend­ing as Ru­bio’s at­tend­ing, and she may have known he’d have been do­ing so. She may be there to en­sure the US has a ‘friend’ in the room and Ru­bio would have that com­fort, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the is­sue of Cu­ba and the US’s em­bar­go aris­es. But her pres­ence as a ‘friend’ won’t have any ef­fect on mat­ters, since her Cari­com col­leagues are set in their ways.”

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah mean­while crit­cised the PM for her state­ment against a group of re­gion­al lead­ers who have called for the re­moval of the block­ade against Cu­ba. (See page 7)

“The MSJ con­demns Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ut­ter­ances on the state­ment by eight for­mer Cari­com lead­ers. Her com­ment sound­ed as if it was writ­ten by a US State De­part­ment staffer. It was po­lit­i­cal­ly, his­tor­i­cal­ly and ide­o­log­i­cal­ly wrong. We ques­tion the tim­ing of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments, com­ing days be­fore Cari­com’s sum­mit which (US Sec­re­tary of State) Mar­co Ru­bio will at­tend. Clear­ly, Cari­com’s be­ing deeply di­vid­ed and dis­unit­ed will be fair game for Ru­bio to achieve his ob­jec­tives ... Why is it our Prime Min­is­ter seems so en­am­oured of Mr Trump and Mr Ru­bio she feels it nec­es­sary to drink their poi­soned Kool-Aid ...”

But Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der yes­ter­day took to so­cial me­dia to de­fend the PM.

“The Prime Min­is­ter re­turns T&T to its pris­tine glo­ry and pin­na­cle po­si­tion of un­doubt­ed lead­er­ship of Cari­com...she met a list­ing Cari­com un­sure of pur­pose,” Alexan­der said.

“To all this, she brought her un­der­stand­ing of the pow­er of re­la­tion­ships. She un­der­stood that to go fast, you can go alone, but to go far, go with oth­ers...she mend­ed and ce­ment­ed re­la­tion­ships be­tween T&T and two pow­er­ful glob­al al­lies, while open­ing doors in­ter­nal­ly to those with ca­pac­i­ty and vi­sion. This mis­sion was not for the faint of heart... In ten months, we’re see­ing the light of that hard work, and it is that she takes to Cari­com- lega­cy...The chal­lenge will be to give Cari­com a bet­ter vi­sion of it­self. If any­one could do that, PM Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar can.”