Farley to attend Caricom Heads of Government Meeting

Stephon Nicholas

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­vit­ed Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to ac­com­pa­ny her con­tin­gent for the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis, from Feb­ru­ary 24-27. At a vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence on Sun­day, Au­gus­tine said he has ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion and will en­gage lo­cal of­fi­cials on the is­lands to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of their gov­er­nance struc­ture.

He said these dis­cus­sions will help in­form the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) as it con­tin­ues its push for au­ton­o­my. He de­scribed St Kitts' laws as pro­gres­sive and some­thing To­ba­go could em­u­late.

Au­gus­tine said up­on re­turn­ing to To­ba­go, he will in­sti­tute a con­stituent as­sem­bly to draft a con­sti­tu­tion suit­able for To­ba­go. He said all sig­nif­i­cant NGOs, faith-based in­sti­tu­tions, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties will be in­vit­ed. This as­sem­bly will be­gin with pre­sen­ta­tions at Shaw Park Com­plex.

"It will serve as the cat­a­lyst of our con­stituent as­sem­bly. That Shaw Park con­fer­ence, all the min­utes will be de­tailed. The Hansard will form part of a body of record," he said.

Au­gus­tine said he has giv­en a dead­line for the pass­ing of laws on To­ba­go's au­ton­o­my by De­cem­ber 31.