ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

A heat­ed row erupt­ed in yes­ter­day’s To­ba­go ple­nary sit­ting af­ter Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris ac­cused Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of us­ing of­fen­sive lan­guage dur­ing the de­bate. He said Au­gus­tine’s “don­key log­ic” re­mark was un­fit for the cham­ber, es­pe­cial­ly with school­child­ren watch­ing the live broad­cast.

Mor­ris moved the fi­nal pri­vate mo­tion of the leg­isla­tive term, call­ing on the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to work with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment a guar­an­teed 6.8 per cent share of the na­tion­al bud­get for To­ba­go. He ar­gued that re­ject­ing the for­mu­la—con­tained in the lat­est To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill—had de­nied the is­land much-need­ed re­sources and deep­ened so­cial and eco­nom­ic hard­ship.

He said the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil’s “reck­less pol­i­cy and fis­cal de­ci­sions” had un­der­mined growth, pub­lic trust, and stalled crit­i­cal projects. List­ing an­nu­al al­lo­ca­tions since 2022, Mor­ris said the as­sem­bly had re­ceived more than $13 bil­lion in less than four years, yet “or­di­nary To­bag­o­ni­ans” were still ask­ing where the mon­ey went.

He al­so ref­er­enced the Prime Min­is­ter’s vis­it to To­ba­go ear­li­er this week, say­ing she promised greater fis­cal au­ton­o­my, a lo­cal po­lice force, and sup­port for hous­ing and wa­ter projects. But he said those promis­es rang hol­low af­ter she re­ject­ed the 6.8 per cent for­mu­la pro­posed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. He al­so ac­cused the Chief Sec­re­tary of hypocrisy for ac­cept­ing just five per cent.

“The Prime Min­is­ter dis­missed To­bag­o­ni­ans and bold­ly said she re­ject­ed To­ba­go’s abil­i­ty to be guar­an­teed 6.8 per cent,” Mor­ris said. “I am ask­ing, is five per cent big­ger than 6.8 per cent?”

He said that the de­ci­sion cost To­ba­go at least $1 bil­lion this year alone.

But Au­gus­tine fired back, say­ing the PNM had no moral au­thor­i­ty to speak about fair­ness af­ter re­ject­ing an eight per cent al­lo­ca­tion for To­ba­go in 2013. He said that the de­ci­sion cost the is­land near­ly $30 bil­lion be­tween 2013 and 2025.

“If I was to be blamed for 6.8, then every­one of them had to be blamed for eight per cent,” Au­gus­tine said. “PNM log­ics and don­key log­ics is the same. And in the words of the fa­ther of the na­tion [Dr Er­ic Williams]—let the jack*** bray.”

His fi­nal re­mark drew sharp ob­jec­tions from Mor­ris, who de­mand­ed a re­trac­tion.

But the deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer re­fused to or­der a with­draw­al, rul­ing that Au­gus­tine had quot­ed the coun­try’s first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams.

Mor­ris said that the re­jec­tion of the 6.8 per cent for­mu­la amount­ed to a “bil­lion-dol­lar be­tray­al,” while Au­gus­tine in­sist­ed his ad­min­is­tra­tion had act­ed in To­ba­go’s best in­ter­est.