Shamfa labels Tobago MPs ‘blind puppets’ over SoE support

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is slam­ming the two To­ba­go MPs over their sup­port of the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency, la­belling them as “blind pup­pets” of the Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, To­ba­go East MP David Thomas has seem­ing­ly backpedalled on his as­ser­tion about be­ing “a part of the Gov­ern­ment,” stress­ing there is no for­mal al­liance with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In a scathing post on Face­book yes­ter­day, Cud­joe-Lewis ac­cused Thomas and Joel Samp­son of “blind­ly sup­port­ing” Gov­ern­ment while To­ba­go’s busi­ness­es and tourism suf­fer.

“Sent to fight on be­half of To­bag­o­ni­ans, they have now been re­duced to pup­pets and yes-men for their han­dlers and friends in the UNC Gov­ern­ment,” she said.

The for­mer To­ba­go West MP said Gov­ern­ment was try­ing to con­vince the pub­lic that a pro­longed SoE was not a prob­lem.

She said, “To­bag­o­ni­ans do not share that view.”

Dur­ing de­bate in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Thomas de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion of the two To­ba­go MPs to vote in favour of an ex­ten­sion to the State of Emer­gency (SoE). Thomas and Joel Samp­son (To­ba­go West), mem­bers of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), backed Gov­ern­ment in ex­tend­ing the emer­gency pow­ers for a fur­ther three months.

Re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism that To­bag­o­ni­ans ex­pect­ed their MPs to re­ject the ex­ten­sion dur­ing the de­bate, Thomas was de­fi­ant. “The per­sons that rep­re­sent To­ba­go ful­ly sup­port the SoE,” he de­clared.

“Do not ex­pect us to be prompt­ed by you (PNM) to vote against this, and come here and say peo­ple from To­ba­go ex­pect us to vote against the Gov­ern­ment. As far as we con­cerned, we are a part of the Gov­ern­ment. So if you didn’t know be­fore, know to­day.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Thomas said the To­ba­go MPs re­main in­de­pen­dent and be­hold­en to their con­stituents. He said wher­ev­er they can make a pos­i­tive im­pact na­tion­al­ly, while al­so ad­vanc­ing To­ba­go’s agen­da, they will not shy away from do­ing so.

Thomas said, “I nev­er men­tioned any­thing about be­ing aligned with any­body. If peo­ple un­der­stand gov­er­nance in its widest con­text, my state­ment is just what it is.

“I am not on par­ty pol­i­tics, I am not here for any­thing else but to rep­re­sent To­ba­go and fol­low the guid­ance I get and the con­sul­ta­tion that brings me to struc­tured de­ci­sion mak­ing.” Thomas and Samp­son have both sat on the Gov­ern­ment’s side since as­sum­ing of­fice in April last year and vot­ed with Gov­ern­ment on sev­er­al bills.

Thomas ar­gued that their ap­proach has ben­e­fit­ed the is­land, which he claimed “has seen its best days since” gen­er­al elec­tion.

He said dis­cus­sions were held with cen­tral gov­ern­ment pri­or to the vote and cer­tain as­sur­ances were made. “Based on what I know would be ex­e­cut­ed in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture, To­ba­go will see its ben­e­fits.”

He ar­gued that the crime sit­u­a­tion, which is pre­dom­i­nant­ly in Trinidad, can­not be treat­ed in si­los, adding a holis­tic strat­e­gy was re­quired.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro was in To­ba­go a week ago and claimed se­ri­ous crime was on the de­cline in all di­vi­sions.

Thomas said, “If you un­der­stand crime, it mi­grates. As soon as you make crim­i­nals un­com­fort­able in one place, they oc­cu­py an­oth­er space. That is a re­al­i­ty.

“In the best in­ter­est of ex­e­cut­ing a holis­tic plan for the ben­e­fit of T&T, you need to be com­pre­hen­sive in your tac­tics and strat­e­gy.”

Asked whether he would vote against the Gov­ern­ment in a sit­u­a­tion where a pol­i­cy might not be ben­e­fi­cial to To­ba­go, he replied em­phat­i­cal­ly, “I will al­ways keep To­ba­go’s in­ter­est at heart. I am not gonna be pre­emp­tive. I am there, I am sen­si­ble. I won an elec­tion and I have peo­ple to rep­re­sent and any­thing I feel is in the best in­ter­est of To­ba­go, I would make my voice clear­ly heard.”

He claimed au­ton­o­my re­mains the main agen­da for the TPP, adding con­ver­sa­tions re­main pro­duc­tive with Gov­ern­ment.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald Mac Lean said the SoE ex­ten­sion had left him fum­ing.

Mac Lean said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed with the To­ba­go MPs, whom he had warned against sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al. The Blue Wa­ters Inn gen­er­al man­ag­er said the SoE has left tourism on the is­land stag­nant, with many in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers scep­ti­cal of vis­it­ing.

Dur­ing the de­bate, Thomas dis­missed those con­cerns, ar­gu­ing that To­ba­go Car­ni­val 2025 was a re­sound­ing suc­cess dur­ing the last SoE. How­ev­er, Mac Lean said one fes­ti­val can­not be used as a yard­stick for suc­cess, adding that do­mes­tic tourism alone can­not sus­tain the in­dus­try.

“Two weeks a year over the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od does not make 52 weeks hap­pen in a year. I have just can­celled my trip to Ger­many on Sun­day for mar­ket­ing of the des­ti­na­tion be­cause it makes no sense. That is the stance I am tak­ing.”

Mac Lean said he was not sur­prised by the To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ vote, say­ing pol­i­tics is be­ing put be­fore the is­land’s best in­ter­est.

But Thomas dou­bled down on his stance yes­ter­day, claim­ing en­hanc­ing the mar­ket­ing and prod­uct could im­prove tourism.

He said, “I be­lieve once you pack­age your prod­ucts in a palat­able fash­ion you would at­tract peo­ple. Your plan­ning, ex­e­cu­tion and the qual­i­ty that you of­fer con­tributes to your suc­cess rather than what you be­lieve peo­ple should be do­ing for you.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Br Bish­nu Ra­goonath yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia he was not sur­prised by Thomas’ state­ment, say­ing the two par­ties have made no se­cret of an un­of­fi­cial “coali­tion.”

Cit­ing the seat­ing arrange­ments in Par­lia­ment, he said, “They have sup­pos­ed­ly pre­sent­ed them­selves as part of the Gov­ern­ment and the Gov­ern­ment has ac­cept­ed them...I don’t think they have a joint plat­form per se, but they have as­so­ci­at­ed them­selves and formed a coali­tion with the UNC af­ter the elec­tion and I as­sume that is what they mean.”

He be­lieves this cor­dial re­la­tion­ship will help the TPP cause of de­liv­er­ing greater au­ton­o­my for the is­land.

Mean­while, TPP chair­man Ann Natasha Sec­ond said there was no al­liance be­tween the par­ties. Rather, she said it was a pro­fes­sion­al work­ing arrange­ment.

“It is cer­tain­ly our hope that our cor­dial re­la­tion­ship and in­creased lev­el of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and sup­port for the To­ba­go po­si­tion would con­tin­ue to be re­flect­ed in bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion, re­la­tion­ships be­tween min­istries and sec­re­taries,” Sec­ond told Guardian Me­dia.

How­ev­er, she said if a sit­u­a­tion aris­es that is averse to To­ba­go’s agen­da, the TPP re­serves the right to with­draw its sup­port.

Asked whether there was a gen­tle­man’s agree­ment for the TPP to sup­port Gov­ern­ment in re­turn for cer­tain ben­e­fits, the chair­man said no.

“A broad brush like that could not be ap­plied. Every par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape or mat­ter re­lat­ed to T&T would be viewed as an in­de­pen­dent item and we would have to look at the pros and cons. We al­ways look for the best in­ter­est of To­ba­go and how T&T could fac­tor in­to that.”