Remove Trinidadian licensing officers from Tobago. This is the demand THA Secretary of Infrastructure, Quarries and Urban Development Trevor James has made to Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, amid a dispute over a recent road traffic exercise in Tobago, in which the Chief Secretary's wife was stopped for driving without a permit.

James told Sinanan in a letter, dated April 19, that the presence of licensing officers in Tobago without collaboration "or even the common courtesy of informing my division," was an affront to his authority, to the THA and the people of Tobago.

"This situation therefore constrains me to request that you act with expedition to remove those officers who have been here in Tobago over the last fortnight, and over whom this matter has arisen; and to further admonish that your ministry resists any further inclination to continue, in any wise, in this modus operandus that constitutes an overreach of your authority."

Even after this admonition, James invited Sinanan “to an urgent discussion for the development of the necessary protocols and systems to better prosecute transport and licensing services” between Tobago and Trinidad.

This follows road exercises by the Licensing Division and the police in Tobago in the past two weeks.

At the post-executive council media briefing on Wednesday, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine accused Trinidad-based licensing officers of “terrorising” Tobagonians during the exercises. He described them as disruptive.

Augustine said, “It should never be that we have hordes of officers coming up from Trinidad to terrorise Tobagonians…That should not be how they operate. There must be a measure of respect with how they do their duties.”

Augustine's wife – Taky-Ana Nedd-Augustine – was among drivers who were stopped and it was found that she did not have her driver's permit with her during the recent road traffic exercises. Augustine confirmed the incident in a TV6 Morning Edition interview.

In the letter, which he issued to the media on Friday, James said the matter was of “urgent administrative and social importance” and must be addressed.

He said, “This influx and operations of these Trinidad-based licensing/motor vehicle/transport officers, from all reports, has been occasioning a disturbing level of administrative and social unease – more specifically, from the stakeholders of the transport and licensing administrative framework here in Tobago, as well as from members of the motoring public. The unease has been to such an extent that there has been a chorus of calls for the Executive Council, THA, to intervene.”

James said as secretary, he was duty-bound to fulfil his responsibilities under the law. He said the THA Act "commands and empowers" him to "exercise general direction and control over that division," although there should also be consultation and collaboration between the minister and the secretary.

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