Penny slams ‘mute’ leaders

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Amid her si­lence on the fate of Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of “mute lead­er­ship.”

Beck­les lev­elled the al­le­ga­tion against Au­gus­tine while speak­ing at the Buc­coo Mora­vian Church dur­ing a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice mark­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the new PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil ex­ec­u­tive.

Beck­les has been crit­i­cised for tak­ing her time to de­cide on whether or not she will be ac­cept­ing John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion. The Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor has been re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee af­ter al­leged­ly help­ing ex-health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh pre­pare his wit­ness state­ment for the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) of which she was a mem­ber. The com­mit­tee is cur­rent­ly prob­ing the state of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try.

John-Bates an­nounced that she had sub­mit­ted her res­ig­na­tion to Beck­les dur­ing Sen­ate de­bate last Fri­day.

On Tues­day, though, Beck­les fo­cused her at­ten­tion on the lead­er­ship in To­ba­go, say­ing the is­land is fac­ing a “trou­bling re­al­i­ty” of an ab­sence of lead­er­ship un­der the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

“A re­al­i­ty where lead­er­ship ap­pears more con­cerned with po­lit­i­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion than prin­ci­pled ad­vo­ca­cy. A To­ba­go ad­min­is­tra­tion that is in­creas­ing­ly will­ing to com­prise To­ba­go’s pat­ri­mo­ny, in­creas­ing­ly will­ing to align un­ques­tion­ably with the UNC cen­tral gov­ern­ment,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said the THA is re­main­ing silent while To­ba­go is be­ing mar­gin­alised.

She warned the TPP and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tions that To­bag­o­ni­ans are notic­ing what is hap­pen­ing.

“You are see­ing and feel­ing the dif­fer­ence and sad­ly, you are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the con­se­quences,” she said.

She said the State of Emer­gency has failed to ad­dress crime in To­ba­go and not­ed that the US mil­i­tary-grade radar that was ini­tial­ly tout­ed to be a gift from the Unit­ed States was tak­en away in March.

Beck­les said the car­go ser­vice on the seabridge al­most col­lapsed when the Cabo Star ex­it­ed the ser­vice in Jan­u­ary and al­so not­ed a pro­pos­al an­nounced by Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj to raise the do­mes­tic air­fare for two ad­di­tion­al un­sub­sidised flights to $1,000.

Amidst all these chal­lenges, Beck­les said To­ba­go faces an­oth­er hur­dle.

“And worst of all, mute lead­er­ship of both Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and of the THA. Not one word from ei­ther. You see, when lead­er­ship fails to fight, the peo­ple pay the price.”

She added, “To­bag­o­ni­ans are ask­ing le­git­i­mate ques­tions. Where is the ad­vo­ca­cy; where is the re­sis­tance; where is the fight?”

While not go­ing in­to de­tail, Beck­les claimed bud­get al­lo­ca­tions for the THA have been fluc­tu­at­ing and re­duced in some in­stances.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo an­nounced a $3.72 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go for 2025/2026—the high­est al­lo­ca­tion in a decade—in his Oc­to­ber pre­sen­ta­tion.

Beck­les al­so ac­cused the THA of sub­mit­ting to Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and not ne­go­ti­at­ing for To­ba­go’s best in­ter­est.

“The PNM has al­ways un­der­stood that To­ba­go de­serves fair treat­ment, not favours, not hand­outs. Fair­ness, re­spect and eq­ui­ty.”

She al­so took aim at To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son and his To­ba­go East coun­ter­part David Thomas, say­ing they were sim­ply tak­ing up space in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The TPP snatched the two To­ba­go seats from the PNM in the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“Nary a word from them on many press­ing mat­ters,” Beck­les said.

“They sit oc­cu­py­ing space say­ing noth­ing. Mute on ad­vo­ca­cy for To­ba­go, mute on the crime sit­u­a­tion, plain and sim­ply mute and in­vis­i­bil­i­ty. That must con­cern all of you.”

Beck­les said the PNM cham­pi­oned To­ba­go au­ton­o­my for decades and re­mains com­mit­ted to it.

“We un­der­stand that To­ba­go’s unique de­vel­op­ment re­quires stronger lo­cal au­thor­i­ty, greater fis­cal in­de­pen­dence and mod­ern gov­er­nance.”

She said the PNM will not de­liv­er di­lut­ed or sym­bol­ic re­form but au­ton­o­my that em­pow­ers To­bag­o­ni­ans to make de­ci­sions for To­ba­go.

She said along­side new PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, the par­ty will mod­ernise it­self and be­come more en­gag­ing to the pub­lic and its mem­bers.

“Pol­i­tics has changed, cit­i­zens have changed, com­mu­ni­ca­tion has changed, and, of course, ex­pec­ta­tions have changed,” she said.

Ef­forts to con­tact Au­gus­tine for a com­ment on Beck­les’ claims were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.