Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says that if re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 12, his ad­min­is­tra­tion will take the is­sue of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my to an is­land-wide ref­er­en­dum ear­ly in the new year.

Au­gus­tine al­so called on cen­tral gov­ern­ment to re­spect and im­ple­ment the out­come of that vote, warn­ing that fail­ure to do so would lead to To­bag­o­ni­ans mo­bil­is­ing and march­ing to Port of Spain to de­mand that the will of the is­land be ho­n­oured.

Speak­ing in Buc­coo on Thurs­day evening at a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, Au­gus­tine said his par­ty has a “blue­print” for To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment, with a ref­er­en­dum on au­ton­o­my as a cen­tral el­e­ment.