Minority to move motion on ‘Farley’s betrayal’ in special Assembly sitting

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is call­ing on To­bag­o­ni­ans to pre­pare for what he de­scribed as a “week of truth and dis­trac­tion” as he plans to move a pri­vate mo­tion ex­pos­ing what he called “Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s be­tray­al of To­ba­go.”

Mor­ris said the “truth” will come on Thurs­day when he moves his mo­tion, while the “dis­trac­tion” will come on Tues­day when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­its To­ba­go with what he de­scribed as “grand an­nounce­ments and emp­ty promis­es.”

“On Tues­day, the Prime Min­is­ter will come to talk au­ton­o­my. On Thurs­day, I will come to talk ac­count­abil­i­ty,” Mor­ris said. “To­ba­go must not al­low its fu­ture to be cloud­ed by po­lit­i­cal the­atre.”

He said his pri­vate mo­tion, to be de­bat­ed dur­ing a spe­cial sit­ting of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, will ex­pose how the Far­ley Au­gus­tine-led ad­min­is­tra­tion blocked To­ba­go from re­ceiv­ing the 6.8 per cent bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion due un­der the pro­posed To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill, cost­ing the is­land more than four bil­lion dol­lars since 2021.

“Four bil­lion dol­lars that could have re­paired roads, built homes, and cre­at­ed jobs – lost be­cause of one man’s po­lit­i­cal games­man­ship,” Mor­ris said. “When you can’t get a home im­prove­ment grant or a small busi­ness loan, blame Far­ley. When your child can’t get fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for school, blame Far­ley. When our roads crum­ble, blame Far­ley. When con­trac­tors re­lease work­ers, blame Far­ley, and when our busi­ness­es shut down, blame Far­ley.”

Mor­ris al­so warned that any at­tempt by the Prime Min­is­ter to re-en­ter the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my de­bate dur­ing an elec­tion pe­ri­od would be “ir­re­spon­si­ble and disin­gen­u­ous.”

He quot­ed Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor, who had said no dis­cus­sion on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my should take place near an elec­tion, adding that au­ton­o­my is “too sa­cred to be weaponised for votes” and re­quires “sober, bi­par­ti­san di­a­logue, not cam­paign gim­micks.”

Mor­ris said To­bag­o­ni­ans are still wait­ing for an­swers about why the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port re­mains un­opened and why To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor con­tin­ues to lag while is­lands like St Vin­cent at­tract bil­lions in new in­vest­ment.

He al­so ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of hypocrisy over her com­ments on the CEPEP and URP pro­grammes, re­mind­ing the pub­lic that she had re­cent­ly re­ferred to them as “mod­ern-day slav­ery.”

“If CEPEP is mod­ern-day slav­ery in Trinidad, what makes it any dif­fer­ent in To­ba­go?” Mor­ris asked.

Mor­ris said Thurs­day’s mo­tion will urge the House to reaf­firm a “To­ba­go First” ap­proach that pri­ori­tis­es lo­cal con­trac­tors, em­pow­ers youth, and re­stores trans­paren­cy in gov­er­nance.

“This week will show the dif­fer­ence be­tween per­for­mance and prin­ci­ple,” he said. “The Prime Min­is­ter may come with fan­fare, but on Thurs­day the peo­ple will hear the facts. To­ba­go de­serves truth, not the­atre.”