THE EDITOR: Certain people "from Tobago" and elsewhere lately have been suggesting (in so many words) that the offshore energy fields "proportionately" belong "to Tobago" according to "their destiny for autonomy."

There is no basis for this. The Tobago House of Assembly acts under authority delegated from Parliament. This is what Parliament can ordinarily bestow and what the THA was given.

For Tobago to have the autonomy being indicated, it would require an overhaul of the Constitution itself via the special majorities, with a new Constitution containing the requisite body of constitutional laws that would apply to Tobago and those for Trinidad, including taxation and judiciary, etc. As well as those dealing with relations between the two autonomous national assemblies and societal sections that would result and for dealing with the outside world.

This cannot be done by passing a single act to do with Tobago. In any event TT would cease to be a unitary state and would be either bicephalous or would function through some arrangement of co-governance. Would it be good for the nation?

On the one hand it would multiply structures unnecessarily. On the other, the nation would be beset by forces of divide-and-rule, likely including a certain particular subset of foreign energy firms.

The latter is showing up already in the intense interest they have in our resources. They have been reinvesting in them since January 2015 when Dr Rowley was calling for new pricing talks and for elections; when everyone was saying the future of energy looked so bleak.

E GALY

via e-mail

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