PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, MC—The opposition United National Congress (UNC) on Monday increased its numbers in the Parliament to prevent the government from pushing forward with the granting of autonomy to Tobago.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley sought approval for the reading of legislation to amend the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution “to accord self-government to Tobago and for related matters be forthwith read a third time and passed” after the legislation’s clauses had been approved in the committee stages.
Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George told legislators that the bill required a three-fourths special majority of the 41-member Parliament. When the matter was decided, 21 government legislators voted in favor, while 16 opposition members present voted against the move.
“Honourable members, with a division of 21 members voting for, 16 members voting against, and no abstention, the motion for the third reading of the Constitutional Amendment Tobago Self Government Bill 2020 is not approved,” Annisette-George to loud applause from the opposition benches.
The two Tobago bills had been on the Order Paper since 2021 and had also been the subject of a joint committee of Parliament since then, with the Leader of the Government Business, Camille Robinson-Regis, indicating that the bills would come before the committee stage, where they would be examined clause by clause on Monday.
But before the process started, Prime Minister Rowley described as “preposterous” the opposition’s efforts to prevent the exercise from going forward based on concerns they said had been raised by the Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), Farley Augustine.
“Madam Speaker, we have genuine concerns with this particular manner in which we are conducting today’s business because the Chief Secretary is raising serious concerns, and at the end of it, he asks that they don’t proceed further with this particular bill because this service as the companion bill to the Constitutional Amendment Bill,” opposition legislator, Saddam Hosein, seen as the shadow attorney general, said.
“So without the passage of that first bill…this bill will not be able to stand on its own because you need the constitutional grounding, said Hosein.
But Rowley said he was “shocked” that Hosein “could so cavalierly intervene in the parliamentary proceedings to play this game.
“Madam Speaker, the matter before us is a matter that has been in the public domain for years in this House. We last met in this House for a debate. We are now in the committee stage.”
Rowley said that two minutes earlier, he had received a WhatsApp message from the THA Chief Secretary, who is “now intervening in that matter offering eight pages of legal, I don’t know who the lawyers are, telling the Parliament to stop its proceedings.”
Rowley said that the request was being made through Hosein “and other persons” who have found an alternative way and things to be done “under the rubric of consultation.
“How did we get here, if not through a series of years of consultation? As I sit here this minute on my phone, I get a WhatsApp. The laws of this country provide a mechanism for the Chief Secretary to communicate with the Office of the Prime Minister on matters for Tobago.
“Nothing has come to me from the Chief Secretary’s office, but today in the Parliament, one minute before we seat to deal with in a committee stage of a joint select committee of years of work, this member (Hosein) comes here facilitating this intervention by a WhatsApp by amendments being proposed by the Tobago House of Assembly through its chief secretary.
“Madam Speaker, this is preposterous, and I will have none of it,” Rowley added.
In the end, the opposition voted against both the Tobago Island Government Bill 2021 and the Constitutional Amendment Tobago Self Government Bill 2020 in the committee stages even as the government moved to amend certain clauses.
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