ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi challenged Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to come to Parliament and put legislative proposals on the table to prove the UNC is serious about greater self-government for Tobago.

After issuing this challenge, Al-Rawi said Government had included recommendations from former Tobago House of Assembly chief secretary Hochoy Charles and PDP deputy leader Farley Augustine in its deliberations on the Constitution (Amendment) (Tobago Self-Government) Bill 2020.

Looking at the empty opposition benches in the House of Representatives as he contributed to debate on the Tobago Island Government Bill, 2021, Al-Rawi said this bill and the Constitution (Amendment) (Tobago Self-Government) Bill 2020 amounted to over 109 sections of proposed law to improve self-governance for Tobago.

"I find it curious, disturbing, unsettling..that after eight years since the green paper (on Tobago self-government) in 2012 (when Persad-Bissessar was prime minister), nearly nine years, that we don't have a scrap of paper from the Opposition of the republic of Trinidad and Tobago (on legislative proposals for Tobago)."

He called on the Opposition "to provide their recommendations in writing or in discussion...I call on them to turn up," adding, "The first act of starting is to actually get here (to Parliament).

Al-Rawi said he had received submissions the previous day from Hochoy Charles and Farley Augustine. With no one else offering to champion their cause, Al-Rawi said, "I have engrossed them as proposals for consideration at committee stage under the name of the attorney general (myself)."

He explained, "They are not my proposals on the recommendation of the Government. We have taken the voice of people who cannot speak in this Parliament...Farley Augustine...Hochoy Charles and converted them into proposed amendments for discussion at committee stage.

"Which other government has ever done that?

"So wedded are we to the idea of democracy. But democracy has to have an outcome, a feeling of safety, of security...the ability to enjoy your country and its rights and privileges within the contract."

But Al-Rawi said, "After 250 years, you have to draw the line."

He reminded MPs the order which made Tobago a ward of Trinidad was made in 1889.

"When will that law be repealed?"

While the PNM respects all its parliamentary colleagues, Al-Rawi said, Persad-Bissessar "as the only senior counsel in the Parliament of the republic of TT...in the House of Representatives and in the Senate...is never present, and (has) not a single amendment to make."

With the Constitution (Amendment) (Tobago Self-Government) Bill 2020 needing a three-fifths majority (25 votes) to pass in the House and at least three of the UNC's 19 MPs to vote for it, Al-Rawi said, "What we (Government) can do is to use the 22 votes that we have in the best way possible."