Ghany to guide next phase of Tobago autonomy talks

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Hamid Ghany is set to play a key ad­vi­so­ry role in shap­ing the next phase of To­ba­go’s push for greater au­ton­o­my, fol­low­ing high-lev­el dis­cus­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

Ghany’s in­volve­ment comes as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine in what of­fi­cials de­scribed as a “pro­duc­tive and for­ward-look­ing” di­a­logue on crit­i­cal is­sues af­fect­ing To­ba­go, in­clud­ing gov­er­nance re­form, wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy.

A state­ment by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said that cen­tral to the talks was the long-stand­ing is­sue of To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, with both lead­ers agree­ing on the need to chart a clear and pro­gres­sive path for­ward.

Ghany, a lead­ing ex­pert on con­sti­tu­tion­al and gov­er­nance mat­ters, is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide guid­ance as dis­cus­sions ad­vance.

The Prime Min­is­ter reaf­firmed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing To­ba­go in achiev­ing greater self-gov­er­nance while main­tain­ing na­tion­al uni­ty and de­vel­op­ment.

Be­yond au­ton­o­my, the meet­ing ad­dressed a slate of pro­posed short-term leg­isla­tive mea­sures aimed at re­solv­ing am­bi­gu­i­ties in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act 40 of 1996.

These in­clude mat­ters re­lat­ed to ma­rine parks and en­vi­ron­men­tal ju­ris­dic­tion in To­ba­go, har­mon­i­sa­tion of statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty un­der the THA, re­form of the alien land­hold­ing li­cens­ing regime, and the po­ten­tial es­tab­lish­ment of a To­ba­go mu­nic­i­pal po­lice ser­vice.

Dis­cus­sions al­so touched on im­me­di­ate ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tions to im­prove co­or­di­na­tion be­tween cen­tral gov­ern­ment and the THA.

Wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty emerged as an ur­gent pri­or­i­ty, with both lead­ers ex­am­in­ing plans for a de­sali­na­tion plant in Char­lot­teville, along­side oth­er in­fra­struc­ture projects in­tend­ed to en­sure a re­li­able and sus­tain­able sup­ply across the is­land.

Flood mit­i­ga­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment were al­so on the agen­da, par­tic­u­lar­ly de­silt­ing ex­er­cis­es in To­ba­go’s wa­ter­ways. The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties is ex­pect­ed to vis­it the is­land soon to as­sess these is­sues and ac­cel­er­ate so­lu­tions.

Con­cerns were raised over op­er­a­tions at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in To­ba­go, with the Prime Min­is­ter em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of mer­it-based ap­point­ments and sound gov­er­nance to im­prove ser­vice de­liv­ery.

The meet­ing al­so con­sid­ered the Stud­ley Park quar­ry ex­port li­cence, with agree­ment that it should re­main in force, sub­ject to en­sur­ing that To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al re­sources are man­aged ef­fi­cient­ly and de­liv­er tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to the is­land.

Of­fi­cials said the en­gage­ment re­flects a con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the THA in ad­dress­ing long­stand­ing chal­lenges and im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life for To­bag­o­ni­ans.