​The President can be removed by the mechanism in Section 36 of the Constitution during the term of office.
The process is initiated by the Electoral College (the Parliamentarians who elect the President).
As we have seen, this may be unlikely given the requirement for two-thirds votes in favour in the Electoral College either to establish the Tribunal to investigate and report on the facts or to remove the President once the Tribunal reports.
This is because of the built-in majority of the party in Government.
The Chief Justice can be removed by a similar mechanism where the Tribunal is initiated by the Prime Minister.
The Government or the Prime Minister can be removed by a no-confidence vote of the Parliament (not very likely given the Government’s built-in majority in the Parliament.
But, MPs, elected by the electors as their Parliamentary Representatives, cannot be removed from office during their term by the electors.
The Right of Recall (to remove from office for unsatisfactory performance or wrongdoing) exists for the other representative or important offices but not for the MPs.
The Right of Recall is an important mechanism for accountability of the holders of public office.
The Parliament elects the President and can recall the President.
But the constituents who elect the MP cannot recall the MP.
The Right of Recall by electors of their MP by a process that can be initiated by them is important to ensure that they are effectively and efficiently represented by their elected Representatives.
The politicians (Parliamentary Representatives) have given themselves the Right to Recall the President who they elect.
But they deny the electors (citizens) who elect them the Right to Recall their MPs who they elect.
During the largest Constitution Reform Consultation since Independence in 2014-15 almost every single participant supported the proposal to include the Right of Recall of MPs by electors in the Constitution.
But the politicians failed to deliver the Right of Recall to the electors.
Citizens, as electors, must demand the Right of Recall of MPs as your check and balance to ensure proper representation!
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen fighting for
Democratic Renewal of the
Electoral and Political Processes
 
24 October 2021

In 2006, the leaders of both sides of the political monopoly joined in unanimous bipartisan action to amend the Constitution allegedly to remove the PM’s veto power in the appointment of the top Police Offices.
The Amendments supposedly gave the CoP full power to manage the Police Service.
What the 2006 Constitution Amendments did achieve is the sidelining of the PolSC by:
1) giving politicians full power to decide who is appointed as CoP and DCoP, and
2) giving the CoP the same powers and authorities as the PolSC to the CoP over the thousands of Police Officers making the CoP more than equivalent to the SC given the span of his control compared to the 9 officers that remained under its control.
Together the PM and the OL succeeded in creating the biggest mess of the management of the Police Service for the sake of increasing politicians’ role in the appointment of the top officers and diminishing the role of the Service Commission.
In 2006, at a conference at UWI discussing the proposed amendments (and otherwise publicly) Mr. Kenneth Lalla (a former member of both the PubSC and PolSC) and I warned of the mess that was being created in the management of the Police Service.
Every single politician in the Parliament voted in favour and the die was cast and so it began.
Since then, the Parliament has changed the Orders for the appointment of the CoP and DCoPs it passed in 2007, at least 3 times.
Here is a list of the Legal Notices: 165 and 166 of 2007, 56, 101, 102 and 103 of 2009, 218 and 219 of 2015 and 183 of 2021.
The last change was made in 2021 (this year) to allow a person not holding a substantive post in the Police Service to be appointed to act as CoP (clause 4 of Legal Notice 183 of 2021). Clause 4 which was passed apparently when the Cabinet discovered, after 3 years, that there was a CoP on contract and his contract was coming to an end.
Under the rubric, Submission of list of qualified persons to act, it now says: 4. “Where either the post of Commissioner of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police is vacant or is about to become vacant, the Commission may submit to the President a list of suitably qualified persons from amongst the ranks of the Police Service, including those on contract or previously on contract, as nominees to act in the offices of Commissioner of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police, pending the conclusion of the procedure prescribed in paragraph 3”.
LN 103 of 2009, previously stated in relation to acting appointments to CoP, “The Commission may, as it thinks fit, appoint to act in the office of the Commissioner of Police, a person holding or acting in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police”.
The present brouhaha in which politicians, the Executive (Cabinet), the PolSC and the CoP are now entangled in the sordid total mess that threatens not only the management of the Police Service, but, the insulation of the Police Service from Political interference that the Privy Council warned of in the landmark case of Endel Thomas v the AG of TT, Privy Council Appeal No. 47 of 1980 (http://www.oas.org/.../docs/mesicic4_tto_thomas_ag.pdf).
Politicians, particularly those in power, have for a long time, desired to wield the power to hire and fire those who serve in the Public Service. They have considered the existence of independent Service Commissions the hindrance to that desire.
The current is a lot more than incompetence or errors by the PolSC.
It is a lot more than being about any individual or who one thinks is a good performer in any office.
It is a lot more than an investigator appointed by a Service Commission answering questions about who or what are subjects of his investigation to an officeholder suspended by the same Commission. He was acting on behalf of the Commission and should have referred that question to the body that appointed him.
We are dealing with the law enforcement agency of the country – the Police Service.
This is about the state of our governance, about the state of our public institutions, our governance and the democracy which we cherish and desire.
It is that serious.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of the
Electoral and Political Processes of
Our society
20 September 2021

It was perhaps fortuitous that the Prime Minister chose the occasion of the sod turning ceremony for a construction project for the building of a Panyard for the Desperados steel orchestra to remark on the issue of diversification.
Projecting that this space had the potential to become a steelpan entertainment centre to provide tourists with the experience of the steelpan culture of the Trinidad and Tobago, the diversification question seemed fitting.
This occasion coming just days before the celebration of the 59th anniversary of Independence must have made the topic even more compelling for the leader of the Government.
The Diversification Dilemma
Independence in 1962 marked the transition from Crown Colony status to responsibility of the people of this country for its future and for its nation-building project.
The colonial tragedy was that the colonial possessions of the imperial power served to provide the raw materials for the industrial transformation of the metropolitan countries of the empire-builders.
Chattel slaves captured and brought across the middle passage provided unpaid labour for the mainly agricultural cash crop economies in the islands of the Caribbean, the valuable feedstock for the burgeoning factory production in England, France and other headquarters of empire.
Each colony was organised under the plantation system, the sole purpose of which was to specialise in the production of  primary commodities for export as inputs for the manufacturing establishments of the increasingly wealthy capitalists in the metropole.
Each island was restricted to a single or very small number of ‘cash crops’ decided as most efficient for production by the plantations using super-exploited slave labour.
This was the era of the monocrop economy of each colony for the maximum economic benefit of the colonial power. The transition of labour sources from slavery to indentureship beyond Emancipation and the Haitian Revolution made no real change to the plantation economy and its purpose.
As Lloyd Best put it, “The legacy of institutions, structures and behaviour patterns of the plantation system are so deeply entrenched that adjustment tends to take place as an adaptation within the bounds of the established framework ” (Best 1968, p. 32)[1].
Despite all the expectations created with declarations of ‘Massa Day Done’ by Eric Williams and other, despite the notions of economic transformation and industrialisation by invitation touted by Sir Arthur Lewis and others, the fundamentals of the monocrop plantation economy persisted beyond Independence.

 The New Monocrop System
This strategy that was supposed to create “new industries (as) an essential part of a programme for agricultural development” and “as a complement to it”, as Lewis argued, failed to produce a diversified economic base.
The multinational corporations on which the Government here was relying,  were lured by tax holidays and pioneer industry concession failed to create the levels of employment anticipated.
The incentives and concessions left the state without sufficient resources to sustain economic development. The oil industry which had major expansion due to the British military modernization and expansion in both World Wars became the main factor in the country’s GDP and exports (up to 80% of foreign exchange earnings by 1960-61).
Sugar and cocoa exports dominated the agriculture sector and by 1960 the Tate & Lyle monopoly was complete in the sugar industry.
Tobago was consigned to be the tourist isle as designated by the colonial power since the 1930’s. Tourism development was also based on offering tax concessions and incentives. The Hotel Development Corporation was set up for hotel development in Tobago in 1957.
As a diversification strategy, the invitation exercise, did not achieve the level of a balanced economic development.
Between 1956 and 1973, there were three five-year development plans, the second and third both spoke of the need to ‘change the structure of the economy’ and to ‘diversify the economy by strengthening sectors other than petroleum’.
On Independence Day 1974, Dr Williams spoke of ‘new industries based on petroleum’ and ‘diversification of products which we formerly exported[2]’. More petroleum products remains petroleum dependency.
The emergence of the gas sector and gas-based plants at Point Lisas heralded a change in the form of the hydrocarbon monocrop but did not bring about a diversification of the economy.
The heavy reliance on oil and gas did not prevent the repeated cycles of boom and bust as the economic fortunes were dictated by the price fluctuations in the world hydrocarbon economy.

 Balanced Development Needed

​ See Figure 1- GDP Changes 1961 – 2021     Data Source World Bank

Looking over the vista of the 59 years of Independence as captured in the figure above the roller coaster ride of GDP growth and the state of the economy is stark.
Over the course of the Independence years, neither sustained economic growth nor balanced economic development have been achieved despite the repetitive chanting of the diversification mantra.
It was most unfortunate, that the Prime Minister used his diversification discourse to berate “Trinidadians” for halting efforts at diversification in the last two decades, while once again calling on people to stop talking about diversification and start acting on it.
Back in the early years of Independence, Pegasus, the people’s organisation created in 1962 presented this view on the issue of the economy:
“We believe that our economic organisation should allow for the maximum utilisation of our human and material resources and should be capable of promoting the general welfare of the citizens and at the same time maintain the dignity of man.”[3].
Just as we cannot stand on one foot, the economy which should be the solid base on which our nation-building project and independence must be erected, also cannot stand on one foot.
Without a balanced economic development, with contribution from all sectors with the aim of promoting the general welfare of all citizens, Independence and the nation-building project will be in jeopardy and remain within the bounds of the established framework of the plantation economy.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Nation-building Project
Based on the National Purpose
29 August 2021


[1] Best, Lloyd. 1968. Outlines of a Model of the Pure Plantation Economy. Social and Economic Studies 17 (3): 283–323.

[2] See p 51-52, Project INDEPENDENCE: After 56 years by Clyde Weatherhead 2019, Project Independence: After 56 Years: Weatherhead, Clyde, Weatherhead, Clyde: 9781094638041: Amazon.com: Books

[3] See Pegasus and the Making of Project Independence by Clyde Weatherhead, 2020, ​Amazon.com: Pegasus and the Making of Project Independence eBook : Weatherhead, Clyde: Kindle Store