Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley sought to give To­ba­go au­ton­o­my. It has been on his wish list as Prime Min­is­ter.

The Gov­ern­ment first in­tro­duced the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my Bill in 2018 in the form of the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment)(To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill 2018. They then in­tro­duced the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment)(To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill 2020 af­ter the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The bill reached the com­mit­tee stage and was par­tial­ly con­sid­ered up to June 30, 2021, and stalled. It was not re­sumed un­til De­cem­ber 9, 2024, (some three-and-a-half years lat­er) when the Gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to take it through its re­main­ing stages and failed to get a three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty as the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) did not sup­port it.

As an­oth­er elec­tion cy­cle be­gins, and promis­es are made to win of­fice, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk sought to find how To­bag­o­ni­ans feel about its au­ton­o­my and the state of the is­land.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter 

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go’s won­drous nat­ur­al beau­ty in­cludes the old­est pro­tect­ed rain­for­est (the Main Ridge For­est Re­serve) and some of the most breath­tak­ing beach­es and idyl­lic coral reefs in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Blind­ed by that beau­ty, it is easy to for­get that the is­land, with a pop­u­la­tion of around 61,000 peo­ple (2011 Cen­sus), is more than a haven for scenic es­capades.

It is al­so an is­land full of proud and tal­ent­ed peo­ple. Some To­bag­o­ni­ans ex­celled and rose to high of­fice, the most ob­vi­ous ex­am­ples be­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the late prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent of T&T, ANR (Arthur Napoleon Ray­mond) Robin­son.

But To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance doesn’t end there. It has been the source of some of the most shock­ing elec­tion re­sults in the coun­try’s his­to­ry. In 1986, ANR Robin­son, the leader of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), be­came the first man to beat the PNM in a gen­er­al elec­tion, be­com­ing the coun­try’s first To­ba­go-born prime min­is­ter. He beat George Cham­bers 33 seats to three.

More re­cent­ly, in De­cem­ber 2021, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, then led by Far­ley Au­gus­tine, hand­ed the PNM its biggest-ever de­feat in a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, trounc­ing them by 14 seats to one. A re­sult that came af­ter the ini­tial THA elec­tion end­ed in a his­toric 6-6 tie, forc­ing leg­isla­tive change.

And now in 2025, gen­er­al elec­tion sea­son is in the air with the up­com­ing polls set for this year. So, too, is con­tin­ued talk about au­ton­o­my.

‘We de­pend on Trinidad for every­thing’

Scan­ning left and right for po­lice ve­hi­cles, Ohad stood on a cor­ner on Sandy Hill Trace in Lam­beau. Eight years ago, a 30-year-old fa­ther of two, Za­quius Daniel, was stabbed to death at the bar op­po­site. Bare­back with a maze of tat­toos run­ning across his chest up to his neck and even his face, Ohad’s ap­pear­ance could be in­tim­i­dat­ing to some.

The black and green hue of the tat­toos seemed to pro­trude from his dark brown skin. His den­im pants sagged be­low his waist. A black belt en­sured it fell no low­er. He looked no old­er than 25 years old. He want­ed to have his say.

With a slight lisp, he start­ed speak­ing calm­ly. But when he ven­tured in­to pol­i­tics, his speech quick­ened. “For me, the politi­cians serve no pur­pose be­cause if I’m not one of them fam­i­ly mem­bers, I’m not in con­sid­er­a­tion to get a prop­er job. I am part­ly dis­abled. I don’t work, and I don’t get any help from so­cial wel­fare. Look what I have to be do­ing, sit­ting down and sell­ing weed on the block. They stop me from sell­ing weed on the block, and if I go out there, pick up a gun, and start rob­bing peo­ple, I would have be­come a crim­i­nal, ent?” he said.

As Ohad spoke, his friend nod­ded in agree­ment. They said they felt un­heard and iso­lat­ed.

“Peo­ple like me, we might not have fin­ished school, but we have some com­mon sense to try and el­e­vate our­selves. We have noth­ing to get. Not one thing,” he said. Ac­cord­ing to the young men, the eco­nom­ic hard­ship fac­ing the coun­try is felt even more in To­ba­go. How­ev­er, they felt that more au­ton­o­my for the THA is not the so­lu­tion.

“What kind of de­ci­sions we could make? We have to de­pend on Trinidad for every­thing. Who­ev­er here beg­ging and say­ing they want more au­ton­o­my, that’s be­cause they greedy and they are not re­al­ly con­scious of what go­ing on around them. The econ­o­my go­ing down and down and down be­cause they car­ry­ing the coun­try in more ex­pense,” Ohad com­plained.

‘To­ba­go is ten years back­wards’

Over at the en­trance of Juzani Gar­dens, Lam­beau, are two THA em­ploy­ees. They are part of a larg­er group of work­ers do­ing some mi­nor road­work near the traf­fic lights. The first, with dread­locks on his shoul­ders, ap­peared to be in his ear­ly 40s.

“To­ba­go not treat­ing we good right now. To­ba­go is ten years back­wards. Grow­ing up in the late 90s/ear­ly 2000s and now are two very dif­fer­ent tim­ings. When I was grow­ing up, To­ba­go was more en­joy­able, and there were more op­por­tu­ni­ties. More mon­ey used to be on the is­land around that time. If you go in the com­mu­ni­ties now, every­thing is stag­nant. Noth­ing is hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go, to be hon­est,” he said.

He be­lieves that the poli­cies of every ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the coun­try fo­cused more on pol­i­tics than on peo­ple. Greater au­ton­o­my, he said, would not help fix the is­land’s is­sues.

“To be hon­est, I don’t think they could han­dle more au­ton­o­my be­cause they are not do­ing any­thing. If we get more au­ton­o­my, this would have been hap­pen­ing—to prove and show. They are do­ing every­thing for them­selves,” he said.

Crime creep­ing in

Op­po­site a small con­struc­tion project on the cor­ner of Spring Gar­den Trace in Scar­bor­ough, a “red” ras­ta­man, called Ron­ny, sat in an apart­ment com­plex gallery smok­ing a “spliff”. He moved to To­ba­go from Trinidad about eight years ago for un­stat­ed rea­sons.

To the back of his rock­ing chair, on the tiled floor, was what looked like a bolt-ac­tion ri­fle. It could have been a pel­let gun. “Work-wise? To­ba­go hard. Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the THA need to come to­geth­er, so we could bet­ter here and bet­ter there,” he said, be­fore head­ing in­side one of the apart­ments.

Over­hear­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, one of the con­struc­tion work­ers from the project op­po­site came across. “It’s hard. You have to be good to sur­vive. The av­enues for work and these things get slow. Long time, you could have walked out so and get a job, but the Venezue­lans came in. When you look­ing to work for $400 a day, a Venezue­lan work­ing for $200 a day. It’s a big dif­fer­ence,” he said.

The sheer num­ber of young men home on the block in the af­ter­noon across To­ba­go was alarm­ing. Some lo­cals at­trib­uted it to the is­land’s cul­ture.

Many peo­ple, they said, worked ear­ly morn­ing shifts, leav­ing them free in the af­ter­noons. Lois, the own­er of L&G Deli—a small gro­cery lo­cat­ed at the top of Spring Gar­den Trace—now has an elec­tron­ic door. For peo­ple to en­ter, she must buzz them in af­ter hav­ing a look through the glass slid­ing doors. Five years ago, she said, her min­i­mart’s doors stayed open.

“The first time we got robbed was about five years ago. Do you know how much time they rob us? I had to put on an elec­tron­ic door, and since we did that, the rob­bers that used to lime around, they stopped lim­ing.

“That set me back a great deal be­cause it’s prof­it and cap­i­tal. When they rob, they will get away with $100s,” she said

‘To­ba­go needs and de­serves more au­ton­o­my’

While every­one else at Ma­son Hall junc­tion ran for cov­er from a heavy af­ter­noon rain, three el­der­ly men—Shades, Strong Man, and Butts—con­tin­ued chat­ting out­side of a bar. Un­like the young peo­ple we spoke with, they were cer­tain that To­ba­go needs and de­serves more au­ton­o­my.

“I feel we ready. Do you know why? It will have more em­ploy­ment. All those un­em­ployed youths will get work, and I feel we could move for­ward,” re­tired state em­ploy­ee Butts said.

Much to his an­noy­ance, he said every­thing—every ser­vice re­quest, every state-re­lat­ed task—must go to Trinidad for pro­cess­ing. “If you need a new ID card? You have to go through Trinidad. Noth­ing in To­ba­go stays in To­ba­go,” he said.

Butts’ friend, Strong Man, was even more up­set. “That is to­tal­ly wrong that we have to go to Trinidad for every­thing. Let me tell you some­thing, all the prob­lems hap­pen­ing here, it is the Gov­ern­ment, you know. It is them caus­ing all,” he said. Both Butts and Strong Man be­lieve it is time for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to go.

The coun­try is not get­ting worse, they said; it is al­ready worse.

“You see that man, Im­bert? They have to do some­thing to get rid of him,” Butts said. “If you are a man work­ing your whole life and you save US$100,000, you can’t go in the bank and take out US$500? That is stu­pid­ness.

“They have to get rid of him (Im­bert),” Strong Man added.

Food is far more ex­pen­sive in To­ba­go than Trinidad

Star­ing out in­to the Caribbean Sea from the rear of the Cas­tara “Carl Man­swell” Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, two friends, Max and Chi Pao, dis­cussed mat­ters in the vil­lage. In To­ba­go, they told me, every­one knows each oth­er by their nick­names. “I can’t even re­mem­ber his re­al name,” Chi Pao said of Max.

Chi Pao, a taxi dri­ver whose nick­name came from an old Chi­nese kick-up, be­lieved that To­ba­go could ben­e­fit from in­creased au­ton­o­my. Asked how things were go­ing in Cas­tara, Max said every­thing was very good.

“If we com­plain too much, that will have us un­der pres­sure, like Trinidad. Trinidad peo­ple com­plain too much. When I read the pa­pers and they com­plain about the price of goods and I watch the price of goods here, they should be more re­laxed and stop com­plain­ing. You see in the pa­pers, five packs of mac­a­roni for $15; one of that in To­ba­go is $10, you know.

“Food is, by far, more ex­pen­sive in To­ba­go than Trinidad,” the fish­er­man ex­plained. Un­like Chi Pao, Max did not sup­port the idea of in­creased au­ton­o­my. “Au­ton­o­my and new laws are a form of sep­a­ra­tion … If we sep­a­rate from Trinidad or get more au­ton­o­my, we will suf­fer. We have no fac­to­ries or any­thing like that. That au­ton­o­my will lead to prob­lems. Sep­a­ra­tion is to move away. There is no oth­er mean­ing,” he said.

That sparked a de­bate be­tween the two. The mes­sage of the de­bate was lost in a thick Cas­tar­i­an di­alect. On the oth­er end of the con­ver­sa­tion, Max then com­plained about the ab­sence of com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er­ness in the vil­lage, es­pe­cial­ly among chil­dren. He be­lieved this was lead­ing to an in­crease in an­ti­so­cial be­hav­iours.

“We have a prob­lem with the fu­ture down the road. When chil­dren fin­ish school, they don’t see any­body to talk to. They stay in­side and don’t mix with any­body. Our par­ents used to take us on Sun­days to mix with peo­ple. Now, these chil­dren are in their house on the com­put­er. Things will nev­er get bet­ter,” he com­plained.

Long-stand­ing is­sues

The harsh, grat­ing sound of a knife scrap­ing fish scales echoed as we ap­proached a fish­er­man named Ying in Run­nemede. A cou­ple of res­i­dents sur­round­ed Ying, wait­ing for him to clean their fish. As he gut­ted, he spoke with us.

“Things not go­ing good in To­ba­go. Num­ber one, the Gov­ern­ment is ****ing up and we don’t like that. And they want to blame pet­ty things that is not called for. They have to re­mem­ber it is Trinidad and To­ba­go; it is not Trinidad alone. And with­out To­ba­go, be­cause To­ba­go does gen­er­ate re­al mon­ey for Trinidad, and they’re try­ing to hum­bug peo­ple in To­ba­go. That is not called for,” he an­gri­ly com­plained.

He firm­ly be­lieves that in­creased au­ton­o­my is need­ed now.

“It is com­mon sense. There are things we have to do in To­ba­go that we al­ways have to wait on the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment for when we don’t have to. If we had our own mon­ey in To­ba­go, then we don’t have to go to Trinidad. We can use it to fix To­ba­go.

“Right now, if you have to put your name in the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s of­fice for a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate, it is Trinidad it go­ing. That is mad­ness. Two months! Your ID card is two months! Your mar­riage cer­tifi­cate is four months!” he shout­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Ying, To­ba­go is in a to­tal mess, but THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is not to blame. He said To­ba­go has too many long-stand­ing is­sues for any per­son to fix in four or five years.

“Every­body in­volved in this pol­i­tics thing all for them­selves. They com­ing to tell you this and that, and when they win, they all for­get about you. Right now, fish­er­men catch­ing they a**. Look how long this oil spill was in To­ba­go, no mon­ey up to now. When Shell done start to sur­vey and drop what they drop in the wa­ter, some­times it’s months we don’t get fish to sur­vive.

“Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment is mad. Colm Im­bert needs to see ... and Row­ley on­ly fol­low­ing him. Row­ley from To­ba­go. He has to look af­ter the To­bag­on­ian peo­ple. Robin­son try. Row­ley has made no at­tempt be­cause he doesn’t like To­ba­go peo­ple,” he stat­ed.

Back to Trinidad

Eu­la Agard has op­er­at­ed and owned Eu­la’s Restau­rant and Sou­venir Shop on Eng­lish­man’s Bay for 31 years. She is ready to re­tire. Lo­cat­ed be­tween Cas­tara and Par­latu­vi­er, Eng­lish­man Bay is right up there with To­ba­go’s best beach­es. The colours are breath­tak­ing­ly bright—the aqua blue of the clear wa­ter, the white of the fine sand, and the green of the for­est trees.

Eu­la’s wood­en and clay brick restau­rant, lo­cat­ed di­rect­ly on the beach, of­fers a taste of T&T’s finest foods—cur­ry, seafood, and Cre­ole food. The grilled fish was su­perb. The taste of the fresh fish, caught in the bay, was smokey and sea­soned per­fect­ly—not over­pow­er­ing the nat­ur­al taste.

“To­ba­go is not re­al­ly nice be­cause now is sup­posed to be our peak sea­son, and it should start pick­ing up, and it’s very slow. Even last month, be­cause nor­mal­ly peak sea­son starts from Oc­to­ber … maybe every­body is feel­ing what’s go­ing on.

“Well, right now, to me, most of what we are get­ting right now are Trinida­di­an tourists. It’s on­ly now that you are get­ting one or two for­eign­ers com­ing over. Last year, there were a lot more for­eign­ers, but this year, not so much,” Eu­la said while prepar­ing meals with her daugh­ter and hus­band in the kitchen.

Both Eu­la and her hus­band be­lieve it is time for To­ba­go to be giv­en more say in its af­fairs. “Up to this morn­ing, I heard that the Au­ton­o­my Bill was sup­posed to be passed, but it didn’t pass be­cause the Op­po­si­tion didn’t vote … In To­ba­go, here, we de­pend on Trinidad for every­thing. It’s time to mod­ernise now,” she said. Her hus­band agreed.

“If you have to get a taxi badge in To­ba­go, you have to do it and go to Trinidad for some­body to sign it. Al­most every­thing has to go to Trinidad and it takes months,” he said.