Hotel and tourism boss warns Tobago MPs about supporting SoE extension

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) pres­i­dent Regi­nald Mac Lean is warn­ing the To­ba­go MPs about vot­ing in favour of an ex­ten­sion to the on­go­ing state of emer­gency (SoE).

The Gov­ern­ment will be head­ing to Par­lia­ment to­mor­row seek­ing to con­tin­ue the SoE, which is due to ex­pire on June 17, for a fur­ther three months.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment oc­cu­pies 26 of the 41 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and al­ready en­joys the sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty need­ed to pass the mea­sure.

The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty has two seats held by Joel Samp­son (To­ba­go West) and David Thomas (To­ba­go East), while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has 13 rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mac Lean said he was out­raged by Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to con­tin­ue the emer­gency pow­ers.

An ex­as­per­at­ed Mac Lean called on min­is­ters in charge of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to do their jobs and stop re­ly­ing on the emer­gency pow­ers.

“It is lu­di­crous for the Gov­ern­ment to ex­tend the SoE any fur­ther than it has been,” he said.

“It is al­most a year and a half that we are in an SoE. It has made ab­solute­ly no dif­fer­ence to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in T&T.”

In the past 18 months, the coun­try has been in three states of emer­gency un­der two ad­min­is­tra­tions.

On De­cem­ber 30, 2024, the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment called an SoE which lapsed on April 13, 2025.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called an SoE on Ju­ly 18, 2025, cit­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. The mea­sure re­mained in place un­til Jan­u­ary 31.

A sec­ond SoE was im­ple­ment­ed on March 3, with Gov­ern­ment now keen to ex­tend it un­til Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, Mac Lean called on the au­thor­i­ties to deal with the crim­i­nals, in­clud­ing those in­volved in white-col­lar crimes, which he said is al­so a ma­jor prob­lem.

He said the SoE re­mains detri­men­tal to To­ba­go’s frag­ile tourism in­dus­try and ef­forts to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

“The SoE has killed tourism in To­ba­go, and it was al­ready dead af­ter COVID,” he said.

The tourism of­fi­cial said Thomas and Samp­son must heed the cries of stake­hold­ers and send a mes­sage on their be­half.

“Can in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers get trav­el in­sur­ance to a coun­try that has an SoE? I think not,” he asked.

“So, right away, 80 per cent of your in­ter­na­tion­al (vis­i­tors) who trav­el with in­sur­ance gone. You just lost 80 per cent.”

He said To­ba­go is forced to sur­vive on the re­main­ing 20 per cent of trav­ellers will­ing to risk for­eign trav­el with­out that lay­er of pro­tec­tion.

Asked if he wants to see the MPs vote against the ex­ten­sion, Mac Lean said, “They bet­ter vote against it, oth­er­wise we are gonna deal with the To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West here in To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, for­mer To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis has ad­vised in­dus­try stake­hold­ers in To­ba­go not to hold their breath.

She said Thomas and Samp­son have been un­wa­ver­ing in their sup­port of the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion since as­sum­ing of­fice.

“That is not rock­et sci­ence. We have seen over the past 14 months that at every op­por­tu­ni­ty they get, with­out ques­tion, with­out ex­pla­na­tion or con­ver­sa­tion with the To­ba­go peo­ple — you can bet your bot­tom dol­lar, Nuttsy (Samp­son) and Tho­mo (Thomas) are vot­ing with the UNC.”

She claimed the MPs have rou­tine­ly backed Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, even at the ex­pense of what was best for To­ba­go.

“It does not mat­ter what the bill says. It does not mat­ter; it is not in the best in­ter­est of To­ba­go,” she said.

“Tell these tourism stake­hold­ers don’t hold their breath. Nuttsy not speak­ing up for them, nei­ther Tho­mo. They are go­ing to vote with the UNC, they not even ab­stain­ing.”

Cud­joe-Lewis al­so crit­i­cised the Far­ley Au­gus­tine-led THA ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­call­ing the TPP leader’s crit­i­cism of the SoE when it was called by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

How­ev­er, she said the cur­rent SoE has been “more painful,” with “cen­sor­ship of the peo­ple and dis­re­gard with ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.”

Cud­joe-Lewis called on the Gov­ern­ment to have a prop­er dis­cus­sion with the peo­ple about the suc­cess or lack there­of of the SoE.

She said Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed to have all the an­swers on crime when in op­po­si­tion, but has now adopt­ed the emer­gency pow­ers as the main crime-fight­ing tool.

Cud­joe-Lewis said she would not be sur­prised if the coun­try re­mains in an SoE for the re­main­der of the Gov­ern­ment’s five-year term.

Samp­son yes­ter­day de­clined to tell Guardian Me­dia whether he would be sup­port­ing the SoE, but did say he has seen some im­prove­ments in the fight against crime.

Nei­ther Au­gus­tine nor Thomas re­spond­ed to calls or mes­sages up to press time.