Camille McEach­nie

Promi­nent To­bag­o­ni­ans have said that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil is play­ing pol­i­tics with the gov­er­nance of To­ba­go and is not fol­low­ing the con­sti­tu­tion or prece­dent to de­ter­mine the is­land’s next Chief Sec­re­tary.

This fol­lows the res­ig­na­tion of Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles on April 29 which fol­lowed his de­feat as the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil’s po­lit­i­cal leader on Jan­u­ary 26.

The loss led to his suc­ces­sor Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine pub­licly call­ing for him to step down.

Ac­cord­ing to the THA Act #40 of 1996, the deputy Chief Sec­re­tary acts in that po­si­tion un­til a new Chief Sec­re­tary is elect­ed.

Sec­re­tary for Fi­nance Joel Jack is now the act­ing Chief Sec­re­tary.

Com­ment­ing on the over­all de­vel­op­ment of the mat­ter, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and for­mer UWI lec­tur­er Dr Win­ford James said the sit­u­a­tion was “be­yond dis­turb­ing”.

“The PNM is putting the par­ty ahead of To­ba­go. This sit­u­a­tion is an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic. The naked grab for pow­er by the Tra­cy-arm (David­son-Ce­les­tine), is clear,” he said.

For­mer THA Chief Sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles said that in his view, the sit­u­a­tion was one of “bac­cha­nal and con­fu­sion”.

He said par­ty pol­i­tics should not play a role in how the THA is gov­erned and ad­vised PNM of­fi­cials to re­vis­it the con­sti­tu­tion.

“This is not par­ty busi­ness. This is gov­ern­ment busi­ness,” Charles said.

He added: “The law (THA Act) is very clear. The 12 as­sem­bly­men will elect a Chief Sec­re­tary and deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. All you have to do is call a spe­cial meet­ing of the As­sem­bly and elect a Chief Sec­re­tary,” he said.

Charles led the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (To­ba­go) and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress. He now leads the Plat­form of Truth.

Charles says David­son-Ce­les­tine can­not be ap­point­ed Chief Sec­re­tary be­cause she did not face the To­ba­go elec­torate in a THA elec­tion.

For­mer deputy THA chair­man Bene­dict Arm­strong shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

He said a prece­dent was set and a sim­i­lar sce­nario ad­dressed in the 1980s.

“What is hap­pen­ing now, is just a show. I find it is a lot of hur­rah about noth­ing. When Jeff David­son was the Chair­man of the As­sem­bly and he re­signed in about 1989, Lennox De­noon was the Deputy Chair­man. He be­came the Chair­man.”

For­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an Pamela Nichol­son al­so shared her views on the is­sue.

“I don’t un­der­stand what all the fuss is about. Joel Jack is the deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. He has the ex­pe­ri­ence since the days of Dr Anselm Lon­don, to man­age To­ba­go. He is most suit­ed to be­come the Chief Sec­re­tary.”

The cur­rent THA term ends in Jan­u­ary 2021.