KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

One cur­rent and one for­mer To­bag­on­ian sen­a­tor have ques­tioned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pro­pos­al to guar­an­tee To­ba­go at least two in­de­pen­dent Sen­ate seats in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man told Guardian Me­dia she wel­comed the prospect of giv­ing To­ba­go more voic­es in Par­lia­ment but ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter’s mo­tives.

She said the pro­pos­al should be con­sid­ered in the con­text of the Gov­ern­ment’s treat­ment of To­ba­go and its strained re­la­tion­ship with the in­de­pen­dent bench.

Speak­ing by tele­phone yes­ter­day, Roberts-Radg­man said, “I am not con­vinced that this is re­al­ly be­ing done out of an in­ter­est or an in­tent to re­al­ly ad­vance To­ba­go’s po­si­tion. I think it is be­ing done as a dis­trac­tion to fur­ther pad the Sen­ate in a way where they can push through their agen­da, mean­ing the UNC’s agen­da. The an­nounce­ment comes im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter in­form­ing To­ba­go that we’re go­ing to re­ceive a re­duced al­lo­ca­tion… I am not con­vinced that the in­ten­tions here are pure or that To­ba­go’s in­ter­est is what’s lead­ing this move. I think it is a strate­gic move.”

She al­so ar­gued that if the Prime Min­is­ter had To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests at heart, she could have ap­point­ed at least one To­bag­on­ian among her 16 Sen­ate nom­i­nees.

Dur­ing Tues­day’s com­mis­sion­ing of the East Ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment would guar­an­tee To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tion in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the Low­er House by To­ba­go East MP David Thomas and To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son.

To­ba­go-born Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons serves as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor. Zo­la Phillips, al­so from To­ba­go, has served as a tem­po­rary in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, in­clud­ing this week. Ash­worth Jack has al­so served as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor for the UNC.

Oth­er To­ba­go-born in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have in­clud­ed Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my and Dr Vic­tor War­ren Wheel­er, as well as Ronald Duke, who served tem­porar­i­ly.

For­mer PNM sen­a­tors from To­ba­go in­clude Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, Lau­rence His­lop and An­cil Den­nis. De­on Kirt­son al­so served as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor.

Oth­er To­ba­go-born sen­a­tors in­clude Ter­ance Baynes of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) and Em­bau Mo­heni of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC). TOP’s Shelly Ann Rol­locks-Hack­ett al­so served as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor.

Un­der the cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion, the Pres­i­dent ap­points nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors at their dis­cre­tion. Those ap­point­ed are drawn from fields in­clud­ing busi­ness, labour, the pro­fes­sions, the arts and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. The Con­sti­tu­tion does not set a ge­o­graph­ic al­lo­ca­tion for the seats.

The pro­pos­al would re­quire a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment and the nec­es­sary par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent for com­ment but re­ceived no re­sponse by press time.

Dil­lon-Re­my, who served as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor from 2018 to 2025, said guar­an­tee­ing To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Sen­ate would not, by it­self, sig­nif­i­cant­ly change how the is­land is man­aged. She said the fo­cus should be on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my.

Speak­ing by tele­phone yes­ter­day, Dil­lon-Re­my said, “Chang­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion to get two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors from To­ba­go now is not sig­nif­i­cant for To­ba­go as far as I’m con­cerned. What To­ba­go needs is the au­ton­o­my bill to be passed. When they pass the au­ton­o­my bill, they could bring up the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my. As they are deal­ing with au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go, they can choose re­lat­ed to in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors be­cause they have to go in­to the Con­sti­tu­tion… As far as this per­son from To­ba­go is con­cerned, putting two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, es­pe­cial­ly when you al­ready said you’re not go­ing to be lis­ten­ing to in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, you’re not go­ing to have them con­tribute any­thing, from To­ba­go, it doesn’t make sense.”

Re­spond­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism of the in­de­pen­dent bench, Dil­lon-Re­my said at­tacks on sen­a­tors over their vot­ing de­ci­sions were un­war­rant­ed and de­scribed the tone as un­ac­cept­able.

“I was at­tacked on both sides. So the at­tack is not new, but the in­ten­si­ty with which it’s oc­cur­ring is new and it’s un­ac­cept­able as far as I’m con­cerned,” she said.