London Delivers Petition to PM

Tobago House of Assembly, Chief Secretary
Orville London

The message to the People's Partnership from Tobagonians is stop being "Dismissive" to their expressed sentiments on the issue of internal self government, according to chief Secretary of Tobago House of Assembly, Orville London. 

This message was conveyed to the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday after the Chief Secretary delivered a petition  to the PM's office for the Government to consider the THA's draft legislation on Constitutional reform and amendments to the THA Act. 

London indicated, at a press conference at the Hyatt Regency, that a number of 5,791 Tobagonians had affixed their signatures to the petition, and that the "people of Tobago are not attempting to force anything down the throats of the country, they are not saying that what they want should be the final thing. They are just saying these are our views and let us have a conversation."

Further, he indicated that a copy was also submitted to political scientist Dr Hamid Ghany, who is the appointee by the Prime Minister to head the Committee in ascertaining feeding back on the Green Paper on Tobago self Governance. 

Earlier this year (June 4) the PM accused London of trying to bully the Government into accepting two draft Bills on Tobago self-government, which she said was created without consulting the people of Tobago. London responded by stating that her statement was "erroneous, misleading and mischievous". Thus this move was done in an effort to preserve four years of effort by thousands of Tobagonians which was dumped or replaced with a document emanating from the Office of the Attorney General, The Green Paper. 

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