Trinidad & Tobago looking to provide autonomy to Tobago

Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has announced a three-member team as part of her administration’s promises to grant internal self government to Tobago.

Addressing supporters of the five-party coalition People’s Partnership over the weekend, Persad Bissessar said that the team will include university lecturer and political analyst Dr. Hamid Ghany and attorneys Chrislyn Moore and Martin George.

She said that the team would collate data in relation to the views of the people of Tobago about the Green Paper on constitutional reform.

“We have also agreed that we set up a neutral team to hold public meetings to receive your comments to determine what is best for you,” she said, adding the team will be “a neutral team to hear your views to arrive at the widest possible consultation for the people of Tobago on this urgent and important matter”.

She said copies of the Green Paper were currently available at Government offices, banks, post offices and other public facilities and that over 10, 000 copies had been printed and circulated throughout Trinidad & Tobago.

She told the second anniversary celebrations of the government that her administration had no intention of breaking the laws of Trinidad & Tobago and dismissed two bills recently tabled in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) on the issue.

She said Attorney General Anand Ramlogan had advised that the bills, which the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) said represented the views of the people of Tobago at public consultations, were unconstitutional and that only the Parliament of Trinidad & Tobago can change laws relating to the Constitution.

“So they are in breach of the THA Act, they’re in violation of the Constitution of Trinidad & Tobago, and then want to bully the Prime Minister and bully the cabinet to take it and pass it wholesale,” she added. CMC