Farley welcomes Tobago’s inclusion in SOB coverage

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­ba­go's in­clu­sion as Dis­trict Sev­en un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill is nec­es­sary to ad­dress the is­land's unique se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges.

The bill was passed in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark used his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions in Rox­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go's ex­ten­sive mar­itime bor­ders make se­cu­ri­ty a con­stant con­cern.

"To­ba­go needs to be in­clud­ed. We are a ma­rine state, an ocean­ic state, mean­ing we have a lot more mar­itime space than we have ter­res­tri­al space. That means that we have a chal­lenge with se­cu­ri­ty oc­ca­sion­al­ly," he said.

While sup­port­ing the leg­is­la­tion, Au­gus­tine said he does not ex­pect it to be used fre­quent­ly in To­ba­go. The bill grants law en­force­ment ex­pand­ed pow­ers to des­ig­nate ar­eas with­in a dis­trict as "closed ar­eas", al­low­ing for mea­sures such as cur­fews and re­stric­tions on move­ment.

"I don't see it be­ing need­ed in To­ba­go very of­ten be­cause our lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty con­tin­ues to be low. The on­ly thing we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing now is a spate of rob­beries," he said.

Au­gus­tine not­ed that To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­enced a rise in mur­ders be­tween 2023 and 2024, but said strong polic­ing ini­tia­tives helped re­verse the trend. He ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion would al­low au­thor­i­ties to re­spond swift­ly to emerg­ing threats be­fore they es­ca­late.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the pos­si­ble im­pact on tourism, Au­gus­tine said crime, not the leg­is­la­tion, pos­es the greater risk to To­ba­go's tourism prod­uct.

"Crime is a big­ger chal­lenge to tourism than the bill is. Every­where we go, every­body we talk to, they bring up these warn­ings that the US and UK give about crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am at pains to ex­plain that it's not re­al­ly in To­ba­go, it's in Trinidad," he said.

He added that To­ba­go con­tin­ues to suf­fer rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age from crime lev­els in Trinidad, un­der­min­ing ef­forts to mar­ket the is­land as a safe tourism des­ti­na­tion.

Mean­while, the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader said he was not over­ly con­cerned that the leg­is­la­tion does not ex­plic­it­ly re­quire con­sul­ta­tion with his of­fice be­fore op­er­a­tions are con­duct­ed on the is­land.

Dur­ing de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son pro­posed amend­ments re­quir­ing manda­to­ry con­sul­ta­tion with the Chief Sec­re­tary be­fore any spe­cial op­er­a­tion is im­ple­ment­ed in To­ba­go.

Al­though At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ac­knowl­edged Samp­son's con­tri­bu­tion, he ar­gued that con­sul­ta­tion did not need to be writ­ten in­to law, not­ing that dis­cus­sions would take place with Au­gus­tine giv­en their pos­i­tive work­ing re­la­tion­ship.

Au­gus­tine said that while he would have pre­ferred a for­mal con­sul­ta­tion clause, prac­ti­cal re­al­i­ties make the in­volve­ment of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly un­avoid­able.

"Ide­al­ly, it should have been stat­ed in the leg­is­la­tion, but when you look at the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of it, there is no way it could be im­ple­ment­ed in To­ba­go with­out my in­volve­ment or the THA be­cause all of the sup­port­ing arms are con­trolled by the THA, in­clud­ing the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, am­bu­lances, roads and schools.

"If it is to be suc­cess­ful in To­ba­go, there is ab­solute­ly no way it can hap­pen with­out the THA or me be­ing con­sult­ed," he said.