THA SECRETARY of Infrastructure, Quarries and Urban Development Trevor James has invited Works and Transport Minister Rohan 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 Authority 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.”
In a letter to Sinanan dated April 19, 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, in the letter, told Sinanan 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.
James also told Sinanan he had tried to contact him by phone once and by WhatsApp messages “to discuss this very urgent matter, but got no response.” He told Sinanan that he too was duty-bound "to acknowledge, uphold and act in accordance with the Constitution and the law of TT."
The presence of licensing officers in Tobago without collaboration, "or even the common courtesy of informing my division," he complained, was "not only as an affront to your duty to the law that empowers my executive and administrative authority and requires of my duty and responsibility, but also an affront to the THA and the people of Tobago.”
He said he looked forward to the discussions “with a view to preventing a recurrence of this and similar socio-political conflicts and for the promotion of harmony in the affairs of TT.”
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