Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has de­tailed $50 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­gard­ing ex­pens­es fol­low­ing the oil spill which oc­curred off the Cove in To­ba­go in Feb­ru­ary.

This sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped af­ter a barge, the Gulf­stream, en­tered To­ba­go wa­ters and cap­sized con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing some of the is­land’s coastal ar­eas.

Im­bert said the THA had sub­mit­ted a re­quest for re­im­burse­ment and ad­di­tion­al fund­ing for the clean-up ex­er­cise.

“The Fi­nance Min­istry has de­ter­mined they should be giv­en $50 mil­lion,” Im­bert said.

On queries from UNC MPs Rudy In­dars­ingh, Ravi Rati­ram and David Lee, Im­bert said THA’s re­quest was, in fact, for $153m.

“We found jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for $50m ... They may sub­mit an ad­di­tion­al re­quest—I don’t know,” Im­bert added.

He said the THA’s costs in­volved clean-up and re­me­di­a­tion, lease and rental in­fra­struc­ture, mar­itime sup­port ser­vices and con­sul­tan­cy, se­cu­ri­ty, ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies, cater­ing and re­fur­bish­ment.

Im­bert said he was not the one who de­ter­mined THA was en­ti­tled to $50m but the pub­lic ser­vants at the min­istry’s Bud­get Di­vi­sion re­quest­ed sup­port­ing doc­u­ments from the THA.

“They in­ter­ro­gat­ed the doc­u­ments and rec­om­mend­ed that a sum of $50 mil­lion be made avail­able in the mid-year re­view—so it’s not me,” he said.

On when the THA will get the funds, Im­bert said de­bate on the bill to al­low the sup­ple­men­tal funds to the 12 di­vi­sions will be on Fri­day in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and next Tues­day in the Sen­ate. Once doc­u­ments are sent to the Pres­i­dent for as­sent a cou­ple days af­ter, as soon as cash flow per­mits, the mon­ey will be sent to the THA, he said.

Im­bert said the as­pects con­cern­ing what the $50m will go to­wards is the THA as­pect and was not the to­tal bill for the oil spill ex­er­cise, but the $50m will be part of Gov­ern­ment’s claim be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Oil Pol­lu­tion Com­pen­sa­tion fund (IOPC) re­gard­ing the oil spill.

Af­ter yes­ter­day’s ques­tion­ing of min­is­ters on the var­i­ous sums, de­bate on the sup­ple­men­ta­tion of the 2024 Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Bud­get) bill will be done on Fri­day when Im­bert presents his mid-year re­view of the Bud­get.