Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) has wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “strong de­vel­op­ment agen­da” for To­ba­go, pre­sent­ed dur­ing her first of­fi­cial vis­it to the is­land. How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the omis­sion of any men­tion of the For­eign In­vest­ment (To­ba­go Land Ac­qui­si­tion) Or­der 2007—leg­is­la­tion that con­tin­ues to lim­it To­ba­go’s abil­i­ty to at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment and ex­pand its tourism sec­tor.

TH­TA pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean high­light­ed this point in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, while com­mend­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for her vis­it.

The TH­TA said it wel­comed the plans for greater fis­cal au­ton­o­my, se­cu­ri­ty im­prove­ments, en­hanced wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture, ex­pand­ed hous­ing, and in­vest­ment in spe­cial-needs and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices.

TH­TA’s MacLean added, “These com­mit­ments re­flect gen­uine progress to­ward To­ba­go’s long-held as­pi­ra­tions for self-gov­er­nance, ef­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vices, and eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment. The TH­TA stands ready to sup­port this col­lab­o­ra­tive path for­ward.

“How­ev­er, we re­spect­ful­ly note the ab­sence of ref­er­ence to the For­eign In­vest­ment (To­ba­go Land Ac­qui­si­tion) Or­der 2007, leg­is­la­tion that con­tin­ues to re­strict To­ba­go’s abil­i­ty to at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment and ex­pand its tourism econ­o­my.”

He added, “For To­ba­go to tru­ly en­ter a new era of growth, the re­peal or re­form of this or­der is ur­gent­ly re­quired. It re­mains one of the sin­gle largest bar­ri­ers to in­vest­ment, de­vel­op­ment, and for­eign ex­change earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty.

TH­TA added that it looked for­ward to con­tin­ued en­gage­ment with “the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the THA to ad­vance leg­isla­tive re­form and un­lock To­ba­go’s full eco­nom­ic and tourism po­ten­tial”.

Re­al progress en route to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion—Duke

PDP leader Wat­son Duke said the vis­it brought with it “some tru­ly mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ments—things that sig­nal re­al progress on our long road to­ward greater self-de­ter­mi­na­tion”.

He said, “I see this vis­it as more than just sym­bol­ic. It’s opened up im­por­tant doors for To­ba­go—doors that lead to more con­trol over our own af­fairs, more op­por­tu­ni­ty for our peo­ple, and more say in shap­ing our fu­ture.”

Duke added that the ma­jor out­comes of the vis­it stand out clear­ly: “First, the de­ci­sion to grant a li­cence for ex­ports from the Stud­ley Park Quar­ry opens a brand new eco­nom­ic fron­tier for To­ba­go. For the first time, we’ll be able to take what is ours and turn it in­to some­thing that di­rect­ly ben­e­fits our econ­o­my, cre­at­ing jobs, gen­er­at­ing in­come, and help­ing To­ba­go stand on its own feet fi­nan­cial­ly.

“Sec­ond, es­tab­lish­ing a lo­calised To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, sim­i­lar to what the cor­po­ra­tion po­lice rep­re­sent else­where, gives us a stronger sense of se­cu­ri­ty and con­trol. It means law en­force­ment could be han­dled by peo­ple who live here, un­der­stand our com­mu­ni­ties, and can re­spond swift­ly to our unique chal­lenges.

“Third, and per­haps most im­por­tant, the move to place coun­try plan­ning and land use di­rect­ly un­der the THA is a game chang­er. For too long, al­most all of To­ba­go’s lands have been la­belled as ‘agri­cul­tur­al’, mak­ing it hard for To­bag­o­ni­ans to build, de­vel­op, and grow. With this new step, the THA will now set the stan­dards for build­ing and de­cide where de­vel­op­ment can hap­pen. That’s re­al pow­er, the kind that touch­es peo­ple’s lives in a prac­ti­cal way.”

Duke added, “When you put these things to­geth­er–eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence through Stud­ley Park, stronger is­land se­cu­ri­ty through lo­cal polic­ing, and con­trol over our own land and de­vel­op­ment–you can see To­ba­go is tak­ing re­al steps to­ward free­dom. This isn’t the end of the jour­ney, but a mean­ing­ful stride for­ward in our long walk to­ward self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and true equal­i­ty with­in the na­tion of T&T.”

Af­ter pop­ulist vis­it, To­ba­go awaits tan­gi­bles—Ra­goonath

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he wouldn’t rate the PM’s vis­it un­til he saw ac­tion. “What we saw with the To­ba­go vis­it was pop­ulism, and now we await the tan­gi­ble out­comes of the vis­it.”

He added, “What the Prime Min­is­ters spoke about dealt with many is­sues which To­bag­o­ni­ans would have been hap­py to hear, in­clud­ing the de­vel­op­ments with the Stud­ley Park mat­ter, a new To­ba­go po­lice ser­vice, etc.

“It con­veyed the no­tion that she’s ready and will­ing to talk to To­ba­go with greater au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go. We now have to wait to see what ‘greater au­ton­o­my’ means. I say that in the con­text of not­ing there had been calls for re­form of the leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing To­ba­go and al­so what oc­curred in the run-up to the last THA elec­tion when the then PNM gov­ern­ment pre­sent­ed pro­pos­als which were re­fused by the then op­po­si­tion UNC.”

Ra­goonath said that we arre yet to see whether any fur­ther pro­pos­als have come from the THA. “We await that be­cause if the UNC vot­ed on the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills (in 2024) in ac­cor­dance with views com­ing from To­ba­go, in­clud­ing from Mr (Far­ley) Au­gus­tine, the ques­tion is whether the TPP, which Mr Au­gus­tine leads, will give the Gov­ern­ment a bill.”

He added, “That is one as­pect. But there are oth­er as­pects, in­clud­ing what is the Gov­ern­ment go­ing to do to im­prove tourism in To­ba­go. We’ll have to wait and see what will be done on that cru­cial as­pect and al­so how else To­ba­go’s econ­o­my will be di­ver­si­fied.”