Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke has con­demned Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for com­plain­ing about the 2024 Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion of $2.58 bil­lion to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

But he al­so made an of­fer to work, for free, with the THA ex­ec­u­tive to help the is­land.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence Wednes­day, Duke said To­ba­go has been ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing more with few­er re­sources in the past.

How­ev­er, he ac­cused Au­gus­tine, who al­so serves as Fi­nance Sec­re­tary, of con­sis­tent­ly strug­gling with prop­er­ly man­ag­ing the is­land’s fi­nances.

“Stop the cry, cry ba­by non­sense. No one has ever got­ten more than you. You’re get­ting what all the oth­ers ahead would (have) got­ten. ... I’m say­ing let’s take what’s giv­en to us.

“When peo­ple vot­ed for PDP, I want to tell Far­ley, they vot­ed for an econ­o­my with growth and de­vel­op­ment for all To­bag­o­ni­ans,” Duke said.

He added that he was con­cerned about the THA’s de­ci­sion to hire Trinidad con­trac­tors for most of the is­land’s de­vel­op­men­tal projects in 2022.

Ear­li­er this year, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­cused Au­gus­tine of dis­crim­i­nat­ing against To­ba­go con­trac­tors, af­ter he claimed all of the $300 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the as­sem­bly for de­vel­op­men­tal projects this year had gone to Trinidad con­trac­tors.

On Wednes­day, Duke urged Au­gus­tine to let To­ba­go con­trac­tors ben­e­fit from the $260 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for de­vel­op­men­tal projects in fis­cal 2024.

Last month, Duke of­fered an olive branch to Au­gus­tine to put their dif­fer­ences aside and al­low him to help guide the THA ex­ec­u­tive on how to op­er­ate the is­land.

Au­gus­tine blanked the of­fer be­fore Duke had a chance to re­scind his de­ci­sion.

How­ev­er, Duke has made an­oth­er at­tempt to of­fer his ser­vices to Au­gus­tine and his team.

“Let us try and make To­ba­go more ef­fi­cient, let’s cut the wastage. I’m ready to work for that for no mon­ey. I’ll work for free. Let us build a bet­ter To­ba­go.

“A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not win and I told him I won’t fight. I’ll walk away be­cause I want­ed him to have the full team to do what­ev­er plans you have on the ta­ble. But from then to now, not much has been done.”

At­tempts to con­tact Au­gus­tine for a com­ment on Duke’s sec­ond of­fer were un­suc­cess­ful.