For To­bag­o­ni­ans, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s tenure leaves be­hind a mixed lega­cy on the is­land. While some praise his con­tri­bu­tions, oth­ers be­lieve he could have done more for his birth­place.

Row­ley’s im­pact on the is­land is vis­i­ble—from the up­grad­ed in­ter-is­land fer­ry ser­vice to the state-of-the-art Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, po­lice sta­tions, and the soon-to-be-opened $1 bil­lion ANR In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal. Af­ter 45 years in ser­vice, the man at his side from the be­gin­ning of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer said Row­ley cre­at­ed a To­ba­go for the fu­ture.

A fel­low To­bag­on­ian, for­mer as­sem­bly­man, ex-To­ba­go West MP, and sen­a­tor, Stan­ford Cal­len­der, was there when a young Row­ley en­tered the po­lit­i­cal are­na in 1981. To­day, he said Row­ley will re­turn proud of what To­ba­go has be­come un­der his lead­er­ship.

Cal­len­der told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, “He did the most for To­ba­go in the pe­ri­od he was there. I don’t know if it had any­thing to do with him be­ing a To­bag­on­ian, but I know for a fact that he loves To­ba­go with a pas­sion.”

A pas­sion so over­whelm­ing that Cal­len­der ad­mit­ted Row­ley leaves with a heavy heart, not be­ing able to give To­ba­go one ma­jor thing.

“I think one of his re­grets as he demits of­fice is that he was un­able to let the peo­ple of To­ba­go at­tain that in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment that they so des­per­ate­ly want­ed, but it was not for a want of try.”

Cal­len­der is work­ing on a project to pay homage to Row­ley for his con­tri­bu­tion to To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans. He said Row­ley built a To­ba­go he can now re­turn to with pride.

Over the years, Row­ley has con­sis­tent­ly made his voice heard on To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance and de­vel­op­ment, play­ing a key role in ef­forts to grant the is­land greater au­ton­o­my. In 2018, he in­tro­duced the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, which sought to en­hance To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance but was ul­ti­mate­ly de­feat­ed.

But on his last at­tempt in De­cem­ber 2024, a re­quest by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for more amend­ments came min­utes in­to the de­bate. When the bill was pre­sent­ed be­fore the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the op­po­si­tion in­ter­ject­ed, ask­ing that the changes sent by Au­gus­tine be con­sid­ered. Row­ley lashed out say­ing, “To­day in Par­lia­ment, one minute as we sit to deal with the com­mit­tee stage of a JSC of years of work, this mem­ber comes here fa­cil­i­tat­ing this in­ter­ven­tion by a What­sApp, by amend­ments be­ing pro­posed by the THA through the Chief Sec­re­tary… This is pre­pos­ter­ous.”

Row­ley has con­tin­u­ous­ly dis­missed calls for se­ces­sion, say­ing giv­ing To­ba­go au­ton­o­my was what he al­ways hoped to do.

Hav­ing lost his best friend, John “Jok­er” Mills, af­ter he and his wife were killed in 2019, Row­ley, head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, had con­tin­ued to call on To­ba­go to work along­side law en­force­ment to com­bat crime. De­spite this, the is­land saw some of its blood­i­est years, with the high­est, 26 mur­ders, in 2024.

Dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter last May, Row­ley called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to say who the crim­i­nals are—a sim­i­lar call he made at the fu­ner­al ser­vice of his best friend.

He even spoke of mak­ing man­age­able amend­ments to the THA Act to es­tab­lish a To­ba­go Po­lice. How­ev­er, he leaves with­out that ma­te­ri­al­is­ing.

But Row­ley’s lega­cy leaves a bit­ter taste in the mouth of Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine. Row­ley clashed with Au­gus­tine, crit­i­cis­ing his lead­er­ship and han­dling of the is­land’s af­fairs. Their on­go­ing po­lit­i­cal bat­tle has seen Row­ley chal­lenge Au­gus­tine’s gov­er­nance, while Au­gus­tine, in turn, has ac­cused the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment of ne­glect­ing To­ba­go’s needs.

But back in his home vil­lage of Ma­son Hall, opin­ions are di­vid­ed.

Res­i­dent Jean Roberts said Row­ley should re­turn to To­ba­go with his head held high. “Well, he has done a very good job for us in To­ba­go and Trinidad and for the fam­i­ly in his com­mu­ni­ty and for me, his Tan­ty Jean.”

How­ev­er, an­oth­er res­i­dent, who on­ly want­ed to be iden­ti­fied as Mark, said, “He do things for him­self. His farm is boost­ing. He set him­self up good, but to say he did some­thing for the com­mu­ni­ty, I ain’t (sic) see it.”

By­ron Forbes felt the same but laud­ed Row­ley’s abil­i­ty to lead.

“I’m not proud of Row­ley’s lega­cy; he could have done a lot more for the coun­try, but I rate him as one of the smartest prime min­is­ters. He did some­thing and got through with it.”

For econ­o­mist Vanus James, Row­ley has to re­turn to an econ­o­my in To­ba­go that, he said, has been ne­glect­ed un­der his watch.

“The prob­lems that are con­fronting To­ba­go to­day are the same prob­lems that con­front­ed To­ba­go when Row­ley went to the Par­lia­ment as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and those prob­lems lie at the heart of what To­bag­o­ni­ans should need when we talk about need­ing au­ton­o­my.”