Richard Lord

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Ash­worth Jack says he ex­pects To­ba­go to get a "fair deal" when the na­tion­al bud­get is pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an to­mor­row. Dook­er­an is ex­pect­ed to present the first Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment's bud­get in the Red House short­ly af­ter 1.30 pm. Asked to com­ment on the fis­cal pack­age, Jack said he was con­fi­dent To­ba­go would get "a fair deal" based on the fact that "Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been keep­ing her promis­es" since be­ing elect­ed on May 24.

He added: "Our word is your bond and I ex­pect that To­ba­go will be sat­is­fied with what it gets in the bud­get. "It will nev­er get all that it wants but we will be sat­is­fied with what we get," he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day. Jack said apart from for­mer prime min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was the on­ly oth­er head of Gov­ern­ment to walk the streets of Scar­bor­ough with the peo­ple of To­ba­go. She walked in Scar­bor­ough over the week­end. Jack leaves To­ba­go on Thurs­day for Kenya, where he will be an ob­serv­er at this week­end's Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary Con­fer­ence.

He is dis­miss­ing claims by for­mer THA chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles that the ap­point­ment of a To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter was an in­sult to To­ba­go. To­ba­go East MP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin was ap­point­ed min­is­ter. Some say the ap­point­ment con­flicts with the ex­ist­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act. But Jack said he was not about to com­ment on any­thing Charles had said as he had proven to be wrong about every­thing over the past two years or so. Charles told a pub­lic meet­ing at the week­end that Jack, by his as­so­ci­a­tion with the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, had sold out To­ba­go.