Joint Team to Look at Constitutional Legislative Reform for Internal Self Government for Tobago

The Prime Minister has announced the establishment of a joint team to look at constitutional legislative reform in relation to internal self-government for Tobago.

Leader of Government Business in the Senate Ganga Singh, Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism Lincoln Douglas, Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj and Minister of Tobago Development Dr Delmon Baker will form part of the team to work with the THA.

Media Release:

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar today announced the establishment of a joint team, at the request of the Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly, to further examine the issue of constitutional legislative reform with regard to internal self-Government for Tobago.

The Prime Minister today wrote to THA Chief Secretary, Mr. Orville London, reaffirming her Governments commitment to internal self-Government for Tobago, and expressing her agreement to the establishment of a joint team to look at this important issue.

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has mandated Senator the Honourable Ganga Singh, Minister of Environment and Water Resources, the Honourable Lincoln Douglas, Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism, Senator the Honourable Devant Maharaj, Minister of Food Production, and the Honourable Dr. Delmon Baker, Minister of Tobago Development to work with the THA in this regard.

The Prime Minister also informed Mr. London that he can expect a carefully deliberated response from the Attorney General regarding the issue of reported incursions into areas devolved to the THA under the Fifth Schedule by the Central Government.

Let’s talk Tobago self-governance

Chief Secretary, Orville London

Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Orville London is calling on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to resume talks with Tobago about internal self-government. 

In a media statement Friday, London called on Persad-Bissessar “to give some comfort to the people of Tobago with respect to her Government’s position on resuming discussions and the process that would lead to full internal self-government for the island in the shortest possible time”.

He said he wanted to place on public record once again his concern for the silence emanating from the Central Government on the issue of self-government for Tobago after the THA election in January.

“Before the THA election it was a major topic and one would have thought that the election was fought primarily on this one issue,” London told Thursday’s post-Executive Council media briefing.

London recalled that before the election all the parties had one thing in common and that was internal self-government for Tobago.

He said he found it “quite disconcerting that despite several overtures made to the Central Government, in person and by written correspondence, there was no indication that it intended to give any priority to the issue”.

According to London, this issue of internal self-government for Tobago was one of the issues he raised when he met the Prime Minister on February 22.

The Chief Secretary added: “I want the people of Tobago to be on notice that they have to do whatever is necessary to alert the Central Government to their concern and to elicit from the Central Government some kind of positive response with respect to this very important issue. 

“We cannot allow it to become intertwined with the whole issue of the Constitutional Reform discussion. We in Tobago are supportive of the Constitutional Reform discussion but we cannot afford for this issue which has engaged our attention for the past 50 years and on which we have been focusing for at least the past four years to be overshadowed by the Constitutional Reform discussion.”

Source: Express Trinidad

Tobago Bill won't pass before Elections

Debate on the legislation to make way for Tobago self-governance will not be completed in Parliament before the January 21 Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election.

The Constitutional (Amendment) (Tobago) Bill 2012 will be tabled in Parliament on Monday.

Debate will begin in the House of Representatives on January 16, and it is anticipated there will be a marathon session to pass the Bill in the Lower House before the elections.

In order for a Bill to become law, it must be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and then sent to the President for proclamation.

Communications Minister Jamal Mohammed said yesterday at the post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair that it may not be possible for the Senate to debate and pass the Tobago Bill before January 21 as it has other matters before it to be discussed.

He noted the Bill requires a special majority and has to go through the process.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, at the Tobago Organisation of the People's (TOP) presentation of candidates last weekend, had announced the dates for the tabling and debate of the Bill.

Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley had described this move as vulgar and insulting and accused the Prime Minister of campaigning for the TOP in Parliament.

Questioned on this, Mohammed said the Bill was promised to the people of Tobago.

He said TOP leader Ashworth Jack joined the People's Partnership in 2010 with this objective in mind.

"So this is something that has been promised; it has come now because now is the time for it. Whatever else people want to say, whatever interpretation they want to put, however you want to stem it, whether we are close to Tobago House of Assembly election time and, now, we are putting this in Parliament, it is what the people deserve, it was promised to the people of Tobago by Mr Jack, and we are delivering now at this time for and on behalf of the people of Tobago."

Mohammed, in response to questions, claimed that THA Chief Secretary Orville London was consulted on the Bill, contrary to his claims refuting this.

"We have documents today in the Cabinet where the committee, headed by Prof Hamid Ghany, they received recommendations and a report from the Tobago House of Assembly, and Dr Ghany mentioned in the report that he considered all of these recommendations from the THA in coming up with his final report, which was represented to the Cabinet and from which the Bill was produced,'' he said.

Questioned further, he responded that the recommendations "came from Mr Orville London and the Tobago House of Assembly, and Mr Hamid Ghany and members of his committee did consider the recommendations, and all of it is found in the report and the subsequent Bill that will be laid in Parliament on Monday".

Reproduced fr Trinidadexpress

Tobago’s Internal-Self Governance — No Facade Structure

The Island of Tobago, For which Internal Self Governance
is being fought

Tobago Internal Self Governance is high on the agenda of all, but would it ever come to fruition, is the question at hand. The Tobago Organisation of the People leader Ashworth Jack, in his address at the second anniversary rally of the people's partnership indicated that “full internal self-government for Tobago will be attained before the end of this year.” This might be a stretch of imagination, given where we are currently in the whole discussion. However, to hope is better than despair.

So as the battle continues and as most Tobagonians remains passive and seemingly uninterested in their fate, I take this time to share with you an article I have stumbled across.  

Please take time to read this article written By Stephen Kangal

Current proposals originating both in POS (The Green Paper) and Scarborough (The Draft Bill of the THA) now in the public domain and geared to accord a higher level of self-governance to Tobagonians must not result in another façade Legislature exercising political and administrative autonomy merely to achieve peace, order and good governance in the sister-isle. There must be fundamental changes both in structure and substance. Tobago must be treated with dignity, the inalienable right of its people to self-determination respected and their ownership or sovereign rights over adjacent maritime resources to be exploited for the welfare of its people recognized and legitimized.

Tobago must accordingly be granted an adequate measure of resource jurisdiction and effective and exclusive control over its rich maritime patrimony to be exploited as Tobagonians see fit to increase their self-reliance and economic independence and incrementally reduce their traditional dependency syndrome on Trinidad. These hydrocarbons lie on the natural physical prolongation of Tobago into and under the sea. That is the legal basis for claims to the resources of the sea universally. They are nearer to Tobago and installations are clearly visible.

The Green Paper plan to endow the new Legislature and Executive Council to extend its law-creating capacity exclusively to the island of Tobago and ten miles of Territorial Sea and leave the jurisdictional status of the off-shore islands, the archipelagic waters and the air-space over these areas including over the ten mile territorial sea band in a limbo is to grant a “bob-tail” brand of self-governance to the island. This must be opposed using well-known Tobago muscle and intellect.

The strategic location and value of Tobago in the archipelagic state of T&T cannot be over-emphasised. The entire boundary between T&T and Barbados on the one-hand and with Grenada is measured from and derived from Tobago. It stands to reason that Tobagonians must now be accorded a type of functional exclusive economic jurisdiction over the living and non-living resources of a sizeable part of the Exclusive Economic Zone located seawards of the limits of the 12-mile Territorial Sea over and beyond what is being proposed using as a determining factor the question of adjacency. Tobagonians cannot be encircled by maritime oil/gas blocks on all sides and yet are blocked from deriving direct benefits from these oil and gas fields. This is a denial of their solemn maritime patrimony to be harvested equitably for the benefits of its people.

Accordingly the proposed Tobago Legislature and Executive Council should be invested with the law-creating capacity to apply and extend to the main island, the off-shore islands, the archipelagic waters, the territorial sea of 12 miles, their superjacent air-spaces and the exclusive economic zone located north, East and West of Tobago.

In order to determine the geographical reach of the law-creating and law-implementation capacity of the proposed legislature the Act must contain a definition of Tobago. The following is offered:

Draft Definition of Tobago

Patented by Stephen Kangal

“Tobago shall comprise the island of Tobago, Little Tobago, St. Giles Island, Marble Is, Goat Island, Sisters Island and other off-shore islands, the archipelagic waters and Territorial Sea, the air-space above these two aforementioned maritime areas as well as over the land-space and shall exercise sovereign and other rights over the adjacent Exclusive Economic Zone on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago as set out in the Archipelagic Waters and Exclusive Economic Zone, Act No 24 of 1986, extending to the limits established by internationally-recognized maritime boundaries and the jurisdictional limits to be agreed in maritime areas lying between Tobago and Trinidad and/or in maritime areas where no bilateral limits have been agreed to with the two neighbouring states concerned, to 200 nautical miles.”

source

http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog/?p=6537

Victor E. Bruce Financial Complex Opened

On Monday June 18th the Victor E. Bruce Financial Complex was formally opened. The gala event was hosted by the Secretary of Finance and Enterprise Development in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).  In what was viewed as an auspicious occasion, Tobagonians was made to wait  seven (7) long years for the promised of the Financial Complex to be fulfilled. The 103 million dollars, four story building, is the idol and the new face of the island's capital Scarborough. Indeed, the building is the epiphany of modern working conditions, including sick bays for members of staff should any one fall ill, supervised study room for  children of staff of the division to help with home work and many other modern luxuries. Notably missing was the Minority Leader of the Tobago Organisation of the People, as he believes that there is nothing to celebrate. Although the time frame of delivery should be questioned, we should take pride in this new achievement.  Lets Celebrate if we can. 

Attendees, Chief Secretary of Tobago House of Assembly Orville London, Secretary of Finance and Enterprise Development Dr. Anslem London, Governor of the Central Bank Ewart Williams, and former Chief Secretary Hochoy Charles, Other Secretaries of the Tobago House of Assembly.

written by O.J.Noel

19th June 2012.