I do not know if the Chief Sec­re­tary has yet sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net the THA’s changes to the na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment’s two bills on au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go, but I do know that the Ho­choy Charles Com­mit­tee has de­vel­oped pro­pos­als on those bills, which pro­pos­als have not yet reached me in my ca­pac­i­ty of stake­hold­er. It ap­pears that they will go to the Cab­i­net be­fore they come to me and oth­er stake­hold­ers like me, who should be at least the whole is­land, which will be to­tal­ly in­tol­er­a­ble.

Since Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his crew as­sumed of­fice in De­cem­ber 2021, two years have passed, with noth­ing done to en­gage the Cab­i­net and res­i­dents in Trinidad, whether from an em­bassy in Trinidad or from To­ba­go it­self, on the leg­isla­tive di­rec­tions To­ba­go wish­es to take. In a short four-year tenure of gov­er­nance, sure­ly these two years must count as wast­ed years. The THA has not been able to come back to the peo­ple of To­ba­go with a leg­isla­tive up­date or to dis­cuss as a body in­evitable changes and in­sights since 2021.

But what we seem to have now is a course of ac­tion in which pro­posed changes from three peo­ple will be sent down to Port-of-Spain with­out be­ing washed, rinsed, and dried by ei­ther the THA or the peo­ple.

Now, I know that au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism is baked in­to our po­lit­i­cal DNA, but I am sure it has not served us well in the West In­dies as for­mer colonies or in­de­pen­dent states. Apart from prag­mat­i­cal­ly keep­ing some of the laws and struc­tures of the Eu­ro­peans, we have been learn­ing to prac­tise democ­ra­cy. But we haven’t quite man­aged to du­pli­cate the gov­er­nance struc­tures of the for­mer mas­ters, in par­tic­u­lar the sys­tems of joint de­ci­sion-mak­ing they have fine-tuned over the years. We per­sist with dic­ta­tor­ship of the Prime Min­is­ter/Cab­i­net.

And now dic­ta­tor­ship of the Chief Sec­re­tary?

Far­ley needs to go to the House, and back to the peo­ple, with the com­mit­tee’s amend­ments. I in­sist. He needs to do that for his gen­er­a­tion and era, if not for mine. His gen­er­a­tion can­not af­ford to let this op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn the pol­i­tics of fol­low­ship on its head slip through his fin­gers. It will not eas­i­ly come again if he squan­ders it.

If he comes to the House and back to the peo­ple, he will have a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise democ­ra­cy the right way. And he will give me and mi bre­dren the op­por­tu­ni­ty to up­date our think­ing on To­bag­on­ian au­ton­o­my.

We will be able to tell him and his Ex­ec­u­tive the fol­low­ing, among oth­er things:

1. Au­ton­o­my should be about a com­mu­ni­ty be­ing em­pow­ered by the Con­sti­tu­tion to be the ex­perts of their own lives and cir­cum­stances and to de­vel­op the val­ues, knowl­edge, and wis­dom that would dic­tate all di­rec­tions and di­men­sions of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

2. We need to de­vel­op an eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al pro­file of each of the rough­ly 42 vil­lage com­mu­ni­ties that To­bag­o­ni­ans live in.

3. Since in­de­pen­dence, and es­pe­cial­ly since Hur­ri­cane Flo­ra, some of these com­mu­ni­ties have been ex­clud­ed from de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty, and op­pressed by the way the so­ci­ety and its gov­er­nance are or­gan­ised. Per­sis­tent in­equal­i­ty and dis­ad­van­tage reign.

4. Clear com­mit­ments and pro­vi­sions are need­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion to chal­lenge this state of af­fairs and en­sure fair­ness for all cit­i­zens in all the com­mu­ni­ties of To­ba­go (and of Trinidad, for that mat­ter).

5. In­deed, these com­mit­ments and pro­vi­sions are like­ly to be the most im­por­tant in a well-de­signed na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion.

6. It is hard to take col­lec­tive to­wards de­vel­op­ment when you live in some of these com­mu­ni­ties.

7. The his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence seems to sup­port the view that, de­spite claims by po­lit­i­cal par­ties to the con­trary, bet­ter na­tion­al or THA man­age­ment of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment agen­da un­der the cur­rent laws will not de­liv­er de­vel­op­ment in the com­mu­ni­ties, even with re­spect to mat­ters such as crime pre­ven­tion, crime re­duc­tion, and so­cial safe­ty.

8. In­stead, apart from de­lib­er­ate de­vel­op­ment of their re­al as­sets and his­tor­i­cal her­itage, com­mu­ni­ties nor­mal­ly make the most progress through:

a. ↓self-in­ter­est­ed col­lab­o­ra­tive in­vest­ment and work that in­clude civic lead­ers, en­tre­pre­neurs, ac­tivists and in­volved cit­i­zens, and

b. ↓pro­fes­sion­als with spe­cial rel­e­vant knowl­edge, skills, and self-con­fi­dence who are ded­i­cat­ed to im­prov­ing var­i­ous as­pects of com­mu­ni­ty life, and to mak­ing their com­mu­ni­ties stronger and more re­silient in so­cial and eco­nom­ic terms.

9. Pro­fes­sion­als with spe­cial knowl­edge in­clude a wide range of rel­e­vant dis­ci­plines such as com­mu­ni­ty so­cial work; child and adult ed­u­ca­tion; sports and cre­ative in­dus­try; youth de­vel­op­ment and crime pre­ven­tion; health care; en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion; lo­cal eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment plan­ning; and com­mu­ni­ty project de­sign, fi­nanc­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion.

10. Suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment and work usu­al­ly re­quires dis­ci­plined im­ple­men­ta­tion of well-craft­ed, fea­si­ble plans.

Some of these mat­ters be­long to the Pre­am­ble of our Con­sti­tu­tion, and some to one or more of its sec­tions.

Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment, and pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He al­so has writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all the ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try. He can be reached at jay­win­ster@gmail.com