Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The $50 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for the oil spill re­cov­ery process in the mid-year bud­get re­view for 2024, has been de­scribed as a cause for con­cern.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber say at a time when To­ba­go needs fund­ing the most, the is­land has been left short-changed.

How­ev­er, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, dur­ing a break­down in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, said the THA’s $153 mil­lion for oil spill clean-up re­quest lacked jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, as they could not ful­ly in­di­cate how they ar­rived at that fig­ure.

As a re­sult, the de­ci­sion was made to al­lo­cate $50 mil­lion based on the sub­mis­sion of ac­tu­al in­voic­es pro­vid­ed by the as­sem­bly.

The costs in­clude ex­pens­es for clean-up and re­me­di­a­tion, lease and rental of in­fra­struc­ture, ma­rine sup­port ser­vices and con­sul­tan­cy, se­cu­ri­ty, ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies, cater­ing and re­fur­bish­ments.

Im­bert said, “The THA sub­mit­ted a re­quest for sup­ple­men­tary funds in the sum of $153 mil­lion. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween the THA and the bud­get di­vi­sion, where the bud­get di­vi­sion, as is the prac­tice, asked for de­tails and de­scrip­tions of sev­er­al items of ex­pen­di­ture in the THA sub­mis­sion, and held four meet­ings with the THA on April 12, 15, 17, and 23 to re­view the $153 mil­lion sub­mis­sion, it was agreed that rel­e­vant de­tails would be pro­vid­ed to sup­port the re­quest be­cause there were in­suf­fi­cient de­tails at the be­gin­ning.”

He said the chief ad­min­is­tra­tor sub­mit­ted a let­ter on April 17 pro­vid­ing some ex­pla­na­tion, which formed the ba­sis for the rec­om­men­da­tion.

“It is based on ac­tu­al in­voic­es be­ing processed for the months of Feb­ru­ary and March and a small con­tin­gency for the fu­ture. So that is how it was done. It’s based on ac­tu­al in­voic­es,” Im­bert ex­plained.

How­ev­er, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go would use the mon­ey as best as it could, but it would not be enough.

“It will not be suf­fi­cient to do all the work that is re­quired,” said Au­gus­tine.

He out­lined var­i­ous crit­i­cal ar­eas that de­mand­ed im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion, in­clud­ing the pend­ing re­lief for fish­er­folk, a vi­tal sec­tor in need of sup­port for re­cov­ery.

Au­gus­tine re­it­er­at­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of pri­ori­tis­ing the lo­cal in­dus­try’s resur­gence, un­der­scor­ing its piv­otal role in the re­gion’s eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

The Chief Sec­re­tary em­pha­sised the need for re­sources to con­duct stud­ies and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works across sev­er­al af­fect­ed ar­eas. These works in­clude re­sand­ing beach­es, beach re­con­struc­tion, and con­duct­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ments.

“Just the stud­ies and works alone would be as­tro­nom­i­cal,” Au­gus­tine said.

Re­spond­ing to Im­bert re­gard­ing the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of the re­quest­ed amount, Au­gus­tine clar­i­fied that the Min­istry of Fi­nance had been pre­sent­ed with a com­pre­hen­sive break­down of nec­es­sary ex­pen­di­tures.

“What was asked of us … was a ta­ble with all that is re­quired, and that is what we pre­sent­ed. I’m not sure what oth­er doc­u­ments he re­quired. What we will do is when we fin­ish pay off with what we get, I’ll take all the ex­tra in­voic­es and send them his way for him to pay them.”

Al­so re­spond­ing to the bud­get re­view, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce chair­man Cur­tis Williams said he felt dis­ap­point­ed over the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to see the ur­gency for funds to clear bills in­curred dur­ing the emer­gency re­sponse to the oil spill dis­as­ter.

“It’s not just dis­ap­point­ing; it’s a clear dis­re­gard for the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

Williams ac­cused of­fi­cials in Trinidad of mak­ing ar­bi­trary cuts with­out prop­er con­sul­ta­tion or on-site as­sess­ment in To­ba­go.

“For some­one to sit in Port-of-Spain and just cross out num­bers with­out see­ing the dam­age first­hand is dis­re­spect­ful. It’s not about a lack of funds; it’s about the ar­bi­trary de­ci­sion-mak­ing by those re­moved from the sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

Williams warned that the fi­nan­cial short­fall could lead to un­paid bills for con­trac­tors and sup­pli­ers. He said this would have a rip­ple ef­fect on the is­land’s econ­o­my.

He said he did not buy in­to the ra­tio­nale be­hind the cut, adding the al­lo­ca­tion was not fair when weigh­ing the im­pact on the is­land’s econ­o­my and ecosys­tem.

The spill was dis­cov­ered on Feb­ru­ary 7 and was caused by a barge, the Gulf­stream, which over­turned off the coast of the Cove.

De­tailed break­down of $50m al­lo­ca­tion

• ↓Clean-up and re­me­di­a­tion $33.8 mil­lion

• ↓Lease and rental of in­fra­struc­ture $4.8 mil­lion

• ↓Ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies $184,000

• ↓Cater­ing $327,000

• ↓Ma­rine sup­port ser­vices and con­sul­tan­cy $5.9 mil­lion

• ↓Se­cu­ri­ty $196,000

• ↓Con­tin­gen­cies $640,000