Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go has been giv­en what Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce are de­scrib­ing as the Is­land’s largest-ever bud­get al­lo­ca­tion of $3.724 bil­lion, or 6.3 per cent of the Bud­get.

Au­gus­tine says it shows a new lev­el of re­spect and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

Au­gus­tine de­scribed it as “a step in the right di­rec­tion.”

Speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­liv­ered his first fis­cal pack­age, Au­gus­tine said, “To­day we are at five per cent, and let me break that down in sim­pler terms. It means that for every one hun­dred dol­lars spent on de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try, five dol­lars is spent in To­ba­go.”

He re­mind­ed that be­tween 2001 and now, To­ba­go’s share of the na­tion­al bud­get ranged be­tween 4.03 and 4.37 per cent, av­er­ag­ing on­ly 4.2 per cent. “As a mat­ter of fact, in the bud­get, the THA bud­get that was pre­sent­ed in June by Sec­re­tary (Petal-Ann) Roberts, the re­quest was for 5.9 per cent, so we are just shy of 0.9 per cent of what we re­quest­ed, and we un­der­stand the eco­nom­ic con­di­tions that the coun­try is in,” Au­gus­tine said.

He cred­it­ed im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the na­tion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion for the in­crease. “We have ex­pe­ri­enced over the last cou­ple of months im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, and that must be com­mend­ed. The fact that we have a Gov­ern­ment that is will­ing to com­mu­ni­cate even when we dis­agree, they are will­ing to hear our voic­es,” he said.

“This year, for the first time, in more than ten years, we have re­ceived every sin­gle cent ac­cord­ing to the par­lia­men­tary ap­pro­pri­a­tion, and I al­so want to com­mend the Gov­ern­ment for keep­ing their word and keep­ing their promis­es.”

Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts said the team was “quite pleased with what we have been al­lo­cat­ed”, adding that it will help To­ba­go “de­vel­op at a dif­fer­ent type of mo­men­tum ver­sus the last 20-odd years.”

She con­firmed that the THA had al­ready re­ceived pa­per re­leas­es for the Oc­to­ber dis­burse­ment and praised the move to­ward time­li­er pay­ments. “We al­ready have that, so we in­tend to see things im­prove over time,” she said.

Au­gus­tine al­so stressed that the funds must be dis­bursed quar­ter­ly in ad­vance, as re­quired by law, to avoid heavy over­draft. “Act 40 of 1996 says that the dis­burse­ments to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly should be quar­ter­ly on block in ad­vance, that has not hap­pened in more than 10 years,” he said.

Mean­while, Cur­tis Williams, Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, wel­comed the an­nounce­ment. “We ap­pre­ci­ate that from the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment for giv­ing To­ba­go a mean­ing­ful por­tion of the bud­get, which rep­re­sents 6.3 per cent, equiv­a­lent to $3.72 bil­lion. We in To­ba­go are ex­cit­ed for that kind of fund­ing com­ing across.”

How­ev­er, he warned that the al­lo­ca­tion must be spent care­ful­ly. “Our on­ly con­cern is how we’re go­ing to spend that mon­ey. It must be spent in a man­ner that is trans­par­ent, and we must ac­count val­ue for our mon­ey.”

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter, in his bud­get state­ment, said the al­lo­ca­tion sup­ports the THA’s 2025–2045 Strate­gic De­vel­op­ment Plan­ning Path­way, fo­cus­ing on in­vest­ments in tourism, agri­cul­ture, in­fra­struc­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, and dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion. “I am hap­py to an­nounce that in this fis­cal year, I am al­lo­cat­ing $2.96 bil­lion to the THA, and a fur­ther $763 mil­lion will be spent by var­i­ous min­istries on To­ba­go,” he told Par­lia­ment.