Farley to join Kamla at Caricom heads meeting in St Kitts

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­vit­ed Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to ac­com­pa­ny her del­e­ga­tion to the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis from Feb­ru­ary 24-27.

At a vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said he has ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion and will en­gage lo­cal of­fi­cials on the is­lands to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of their gov­er­nance struc­ture.

“This is a first be­cause the THA has no re­mit over in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions based on the law, but we have been in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate sim­ply be­cause it is hap­pen­ing in St Kitts and Nevis,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said the twin-is­land na­tion is a fed­er­a­tion and these dis­cus­sions will help in­form the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) as it con­tin­ues its push for au­ton­o­my. He de­scribed St Kitts’ au­ton­o­my laws as pro­gres­sive and some­thing To­ba­go could em­u­late.

He said meet­ings have been fa­cil­i­tat­ed with the Nevis Pre­mier, St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Cari­com lead­ers.

“I want to thank the Prime Min­is­ter. She has sig­nalled that we should think as pro­gres­sive as the peo­ple of St Kitts and Nevis in build­ing out our frame­work for au­ton­o­my.”

Au­gus­tine said up­on re­turn­ing to To­ba­go, he will in­stall a con­stituent as­sem­bly to draft a con­sti­tu­tion suit­able for To­ba­go.

“I am call­ing the en­tire is­land to a place where we fi­nalise the pro­vi­sions we want for au­ton­o­my,” he said.

He said all sig­nif­i­cant NGOs, faith-based in­sti­tu­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from le­git­i­mate po­lit­i­cal par­ties will be in­vit­ed. This as­sem­bly will be­gin with pre­sen­ta­tions from var­i­ous stake­hold­ers at Shaw Park Com­plex, he said.

“It will serve as the cat­a­lyst of our con­stituent as­sem­bly.”

He said al­though the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty won all 15 seats in the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions, his ad­min­is­tra­tion is tak­ing a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ap­proach to­wards au­ton­o­my.

“By the time we send this thing down to Par­lia­ment, it should be fit to go straight to the Par­lia­ment floor,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said he has giv­en a De­cem­ber 31 dead­line for the pass­ing of a law on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my.

The Par­latu­vi­er/L’anse Four­mi/Spey­side as­sem­bly­man said al­though he is keen on see­ing greater au­ton­o­my come to pass, there are sev­er­al non-ne­go­tiables.

“No po­lit­i­cal par­ty in this ex­er­cise will get all that they want, but we know there are some non-ne­go­tiables: the defin­ing of the is­land and the is­land’s space, the au­thor­i­ty in law over our space and to pass laws, and to max­imise our earn­ing po­ten­tial us­ing our phys­i­cal and mar­itime space. We will stick to those non-ne­go­tiables while we look at the broad­er au­ton­o­my pic­ture,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said a sin­gle Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment Bill should be passed, giv­ing To­ba­go the pow­er to en­act laws. He said To­ba­go would then “take our time, sub­se­quent to the pass­ing of that law, to build out the form and struc­ture of our gov­ern­ment.”