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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

UNC MPs say they could not support ‘rushed’ Tobago bills

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70 days ago
20241210
Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, from left, Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally and Naparima MP Rodney Charles in Parliament on Monday.

Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, from left, Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally and Naparima MP Rodney Charles in Parliament on Monday.

ROGER JACOB

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There should be no rush­ing of the au­ton­o­my process for To­ba­go.

That’s the view of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MPs Rush­ton Paray and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who were among the Op­po­si­tion MPs who vot­ed against the two To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills on Mon­day.

Paray said he vot­ed against the bills “as they’re yet an­oth­er in­stance of this Gov­ern­ment sidelin­ing the voic­es of the very peo­ple they claim to serve. Au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go is far too im­por­tant to be rushed or treat­ed dis­mis­sive­ly.”

“For years, To­bag­o­ni­ans called for mean­ing­ful self-gov­er­nance. In­stead of en­gag­ing with them ful­ly, the Gov­ern­ment de­layed the process, then forced through bills that fail to ad­dress their core con­cerns. This isn’t about em­pow­er­ing To­ba­go—it’s about the Gov­ern­ment tick­ing a box to claim progress while ne­glect­ing the re­al work re­quired to meet To­ba­go’s needs.”

Paray added, “What is most dis­ap­point­ing is the bla­tant dis­re­gard for con­cerns raised by the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee’s Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port and the Op­po­si­tion ... rushed and poor­ly planned leg­is­la­tion leads to fail­ure.

“I can­not sup­port an ap­proach that treats To­ba­go as an af­ter­thought. My vote re­flects my un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that To­ba­go de­serves a gen­uine and re­spect­ful path to au­ton­o­my—not this flawed and in­ad­e­quate at­tempt.”

Ram­bal­ly, who’d long in­di­cat­ed he’d have re­ject­ed the bills, added, “Mean­ing­ful au­ton­o­my re­quires a process that’s fair, in­clu­sive, and trans­par­ent—not one that’s rushed and dis­mis­sive of key stake­hold­ers.

“For over three years, the Gov­ern­ment had am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage To­bag­o­ni­ans and the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion in gen­uine con­sul­ta­tions on this crit­i­cal bill. Yet, they chose to de­lay the process un­til the 11th hour, leav­ing lit­tle room for prop­er dis­course and col­lab­o­ra­tion. They al­so didn’t pro­vide the Op­po­si­tion with copies of cer­tain amend­ments of the amend­ed bill till min­utes be­fore the sit­ting...”

He al­so took is­sue with the Prime Min­is­ter’s fail­ure to con­sult the Op­po­si­tion on such crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion, even fol­low­ing his Bud­get de­bate an­nounce­ment that he was re­turn­ing to the bills know­ing the UNC’s pre­vi­ous ob­jec­tions.

“If this Gov­ern­ment was se­ri­ous about achiev­ing bi­par­ti­san sup­port for the bill, they’d have en­gaged us in mean­ing­ful di­a­logue. Their fail­ure to do so isn’t just dis­re­spect­ful to the Op­po­si­tion but to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process it­self.”

Ram­bal­ly added, “I can­not sup­port leg­is­la­tion that hasn’t been ad­e­quate­ly dis­cussed with the peo­ple it’s meant to serve. The bill failed to re­flect the true as­pi­ra­tions of To­bag­o­ni­ans and lacks the bal­ance nec­es­sary to en­sure its suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion. Even con­cerns raised in the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee’s Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port were dis­re­gard­ed ... while I sup­port To­ba­go’s right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and greater au­ton­o­my, it must be done in a way that en­sures To­ba­go isn’t just grant­ed pow­ers in the­o­ry but has the tools, re­sources, and safe­guards to suc­ceed. The cur­rent bill doesn’t meet this stan­dard.”


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