Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has con­firmed that the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate on the is­land, even as both have been phased out in Trinidad.

The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to elim­i­nate the pro­grammes in Trinidad was dri­ven by wide­spread con­cerns over sys­temic cor­rup­tion, fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment, and claims that the con­tracts were be­ing in­fil­trat­ed by “ghost gangs” and used to fu­el crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

How­ev­er, the THA has deemed the pro­grammes’ con­tin­u­a­tion es­sen­tial for the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment. Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts con­firmed the de­ci­sion, stat­ing the As­sem­bly plans to make both URP and CEPEP more sus­tain­able, ef­fi­cient, and pro­duc­tive.

Roberts made the com­ment fol­low­ing a two-day Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil re­treat, where the THA agreed to shift $300 mil­lion from re­cur­rent spend­ing in­to de­vel­op­ment projects. The move will raise To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment bud­get to $501 mil­lion next year.

She said the As­sem­bly will main­tain its 2025 spend­ing lev­els in oth­er ar­eas while in­vest­ing more in projects that can cre­ate jobs and stim­u­late growth.

The THA’s to­tal al­lo­ca­tion stands at $2.96 bil­lion, with $18 mil­lion to fund the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme and $9.2 mil­lion for CEPEP. Roberts con­firmed both pro­grammes will re­main ac­tive and will be used to sup­port the is­land’s broad­er de­vel­op­ment goals.

“As a mat­ter of fact, we want to look at them be­ing more ef­fi­cient and pro­duc­tive,” Roberts said. “So CEPEP will be aligned to agri­cul­ture, URP will be aligned to more sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals. These pro­grammes are very piv­otal for our de­vel­op­ment, and there­fore we con­tin­ue to make the in­vest­ment in CEPEP and URP.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the dis­cus­sions at the re­treat were ex­ten­sive and fo­cused on how the As­sem­bly can get the best val­ue for mon­ey in the new fis­cal year. He said all de­ci­sions tak­en are meant to en­sure that gov­ern­ment spend­ing trans­lates in­to re­al, mea­sur­able ben­e­fits for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“We’ve looked close­ly at what worked, what didn’t, and what must change,” Au­gus­tine said. “The next phase is en­sur­ing that every dol­lar spent has a di­rect, pos­i­tive im­pact on the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

With the cur­rent term set to ex­pire in five weeks and elec­tions ex­pect­ed soon, the THA says its fo­cus is on sta­bil­i­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and keep­ing To­ba­go’s econ­o­my on track.