Dr Win­ford James

Max Al­bert and I con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions on the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my ques­tion.

Our colo­nial past gave us the Crown Colony and West­min­ster sys­tems. In our search for a new mod­el of gov­ern­ment, we of­fer the Silk Cot­ton Sys­tem: a Re­pub­lic root­ed in its peo­ple, with two self-gov­ern­ing is­lands and in­sti­tu­tions strong enough to hold ex­ec­u­tive pow­er to ac­count. The name comes from To­ba­go’s own land­scape and mem­o­ry. It should name an ac­tu­al dis­tri­b­u­tion of pow­er, not mere­ly dec­o­rate an old arrange­ment.

The silk cot­ton tree has stood in To­ba­go’s sto­ries for gen­er­a­tions. Its roots and but­tress­es hold it fast. Around it gath­er ac­counts of an­ces­tors, spir­its, and Gang Gang Sarah. The tree car­ries a peo­ple’s mem­o­ry. To­ba­go’s trea­sured tree at Cul­lo­den fell in 2020, but its sto­ry did not fall with it. A con­sti­tu­tion, too, must be tend­ed if it is to out­live those who first plant­ed it.

Our present sys­tem gives peo­ple elec­tions, par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives, ques­tions, au­dits, and courts. Those are re­al safe­guards. Yet a gov­ern­ment com­mand­ing the leg­is­la­ture can of­ten con­trol the pace and terms of scruti­ny. A Chief Sec­re­tary or Prime Min­is­ter may pos­sess an over­whelm­ing man­date and still face too few ef­fec­tive checks be­tween elec­tions. The prob­lem does not be­gin or end with Far­ley Au­gus­tine. From Williams to Cham­bers, Robin­son, Pan­day, Man­ning, Row­ley and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, cit­i­zens have want­ed a mean­ing­ful part in de­ci­sions af­fect­ing their com­mu­ni­ties.

The de­sign fol­lows the tree: peo­ple as roots, the com­mon Re­pub­lic as trunk, is­land gov­ern­ments as branch­es, and shared in­sti­tu­tions as canopy. These are its main pil­lars:

1. One Re­pub­lic, two self-gov­ern­ing is­lands. The Con­sti­tu­tion would dis­tin­guish pow­ers ex­er­cised by each is­land from pow­ers ex­er­cised to­geth­er. To­ba­go would have pro­tect­ed au­thor­i­ty over its do­mes­tic af­fairs; Trinidad would gov­ern its own. The Re­pub­lic would re­main unit­ed for gen­uine­ly com­mon pur­pos­es.

2. An elect­ed leg­is­la­ture and Pre­mier on each is­land. Is­land vot­ers would choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who would se­lect and scru­ti­nise a Pre­mier and do­mes­tic gov­ern­ment. Those gov­ern­ments would con­trol as­signed ser­vices, plans, and bud­gets. To­ba­go it­self would de­sign the de­tails of its in­sti­tu­tions through an open To­ba­go process, so self-gov­ern­ment would be­gin with its peo­ple.

3. A peo­ple’s cham­ber on each is­land. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of com­mu­ni­ty bod­ies, in­clud­ing po­lice youth clubs, fish­er folk, church­es, etc., would pop­u­late the Cham­ber af­ter be­ing elect­ed through a fair civic lot­tery. No sec­tor could claim own­er­ship of the cham­ber. Be­fore ma­jor bills, bud­gets, or de­vel­op­ment plans are set­tled, the cham­ber would see doc­u­ments, hear wit­ness­es, and pub­lish its find­ings.

4. An Ex­ec­u­tive re­quired to an­swer. A peo­ple’s cham­ber must have more than a mi­cro­phone. By law, an is­land Ex­ec­u­tive would ex­plain its rec­om­men­da­tions pub­licly with­in a fixed pe­ri­od. The cham­ber could pause a ma­jor de­ci­sion briefly while the ex­pla­na­tions are ex­am­ined. The elect­ed leg­is­la­ture would still cast the fi­nal vote, af­ter pub­lic rea­sons are giv­en.

5. A cit­i­zens’ pe­ti­tion route. A pe­ti­tion sup­port­ed by a de­fined share of vot­ers could re­quire a pub­lic vote on ex­cep­tion­al con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions. The thresh­old and sub­ject mat­ter would be set in law to pro­tect the process from ca­su­al use. Cit­i­zens would have a di­rect route to shape their con­sti­tu­tion.

6. Non-aligned scruti­ny of is­land spend­ing. Each is­land would have a pub­lic ac­counts com­mit­tee with au­thor­i­ty to ob­tain records and sum­mon of­fi­cials. Its chair would come from the op­po­si­tion; but if there is none, the peo­ple’s cham­ber would choose a non-aligned civic chair. Bud­gets and con­tracts would face pub­lic scruti­ny even when one par­ty wins every elect­ed seat.

7. A fair fis­cal set­tle­ment. A non-aligned fis­cal body would rec­om­mend a trans­par­ent for­mu­la for shar­ing na­tion­al rev­enue, with pub­lished ac­counts and au­dits. It would con­sid­er To­ba­go’s sep­a­ra­tion from Trinidad by sea, its cost of de­liv­er­ing ser­vices, and its con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al rev­enue. Mon­ey and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty must trav­el to­geth­er; an is­land can­not be held ac­count­able for func­tions it lacks the means to per­form.

8. A na­tion­al gov­ern­ment for shared af­fairs. A Pres­i­dent di­rect­ly elect­ed by a ma­jor­i­ty of votes in each is­land would lead the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive in mat­ters of de­fence, for­eign af­fairs, im­mi­gra­tion, and cit­i­zen­ship.

9. The Sen­ate. The na­tion­al Sen­ate would con­tain equal del­e­ga­tions from To­ba­go and Trinidad, each with gov­ern­ment, op­po­si­tion, and non-aligned sen­a­tors cho­sen by trans­par­ent is­land pro­ce­dures. Non-aligned mem­bers would have fixed terms and pro­tec­tion from re­moval at an Ex­ec­u­tive’s whim. The peo­ple’s cham­bers would de­cide or­di­nary na­tion­al leg­is­la­tion, sub­ject to Sen­ate re­view; equal is­land voic­es would guard the part­ner­ship, not halt dai­ly gov­ern­ment af­fairs.

10. Pro­tec­tion for each is­land’s con­sti­tu­tion­al place. Chang­ing an is­land’s pow­ers, ter­ri­to­ry, or rev­enue rules would re­quire a ma­jor­i­ty in each is­land’s Sen­ate del­e­ga­tion. A joint pan­el would first ad­dress dis­putes over pow­ers or mon­ey, with a fi­nal route to the courts. To­ba­go’s sta­tus would there­by rest on en­force­able con­sent, not a promise that a fu­ture ma­jor­i­ty could set aside.

If Trinidad de­clines this de­sign for it­self, To­ba­go need not aban­don it. The As­sem­bly can be­gin a To­ba­go peo­ple’s fo­rum, open its plans and bud­gets to scruti­ny and adopt a rule re­quir­ing pub­lic an­swers from its Ex­ec­u­tive. An en­trenched sec­ond cham­ber, a Pre­mier, and new law­mak­ing pow­ers would re­quire na­tion­al leg­is­la­tion and, where nec­es­sary, con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment. We would seek that set­tle­ment as To­ba­go’s own cre­ation. The Silk Cot­ton can take root here first.

Dr Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­tics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He has al­so writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try.