Gail Alexan­der

The re­spec­tive al­lo­ca­tions for the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions for the next fis­cal year in­clude large sums—up to a max­i­mum of $10m in some cas­es—for cor­po­ra­tions to han­dle road and bridge re­pair work.

And for To­ba­go, there is a $1m al­lo­ca­tion for the es­tab­lish­ment of an “ar­ti­fi­cial turf fa­cil­i­ty.”

This is among in­for­ma­tion in Gov­ern­ment’s $6.164 bil­lion Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment (DED) doc­u­ment, which is in its 2023 Bud­get frame­work.

The al­lo­ca­tions for the 14 cor­po­ra­tions are list­ed un­der the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry.

That min­istry re­ceived the high­est al­lo­ca­tion among the DED’s con­tents—$427.4M. That in­cludes $14m for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form.

Sec­ond and third high­est al­lo­ca­tions among the DED were Ed­u­ca­tion ($317.4m) and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ($300m).

The doc­u­ment al­so lists some new and re­ac­ti­vat­ed items among the var­i­ous Min­istries and THA.

Ac­cord­ing to the DED, the 2023 al­lo­ca­tions for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are Port-of-Spain ($32.5m), Ari­ma ($27.9m), San Fer­nan­do ($30.9m), Point Fortin ($28.1m), Ch­agua­nas ($24.6m), Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro ($28.2m), Diego Mar­tin ($24.1m), San Juan/Laven­tille ($31.2m), Tu­na­puna/ Pi­ar­co ($28.3m), San­gre Grande ($29.2m), Ma­yaro/Rio Claro ($21.21m), Siparia ($25m), Pe­nal/Debe ($23.2m) and Princes Town ($23.95m).

With­in each of their re­spec­tive al­lo­ca­tions, the largest sums re­ceived were for road and bridge work.

That ranged from a high of $10m (PoS, San Fer­nan­do, San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Cor­po­ra­tions) to a low of $5.5m (Pe­nal Debe).

The Works Min­istry al­so has sums al­lo­cat­ed for riv­er clean­ing ($7m), re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and flood mit­i­ga­tion plans ($9m) and up­grade of pumps and gate in­ven­to­ry ($5m).

Among on­go­ing items for the THA is the $1m for the es­tab­lish­ment of the “ar­ti­fi­cial turf fa­cil­i­ty.” The lo­ca­tion was not stat­ed.

The same item was al­lo­cat­ed $500,000 in 2022.

Al­so list­ed for the THA is $500,000 for the ren­o­va­tion of the Chief Sec­re­tary’s res­i­dence.

Sev­er­al items have been re­ac­ti­vat­ed un­der the THA. That in­cludes the Wind­ward Road project ($6m) a youth ap­pren­tice­ship pro­gramme ($1m), agro-forestry and im­prove­ment of the Botan­ic Gar­dens ($1m).

The THA al­so has $400,000 fund­ing each for “Blenheim Sheep Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion” and for “A Sheep Fat­ten­ing Fa­cil­i­ty.”

Some $1m has been al­lo­cat­ed for To­ba­go’s Sar­gas­sum weed re­sponse—and $300,000 for the is­land’s tourism sup­port project for “Trau­ma­tised Vis­i­tors” (sic).

$20m for EBC ver­i­fy­ing ex­er­cise

Oth­er DED list­ings in­clude $20m for the Fi­nance Min­istry to es­tab­lish a T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty and an in­creased sum—$9.7m- for Health to deal with the wait­ing lists for surgery. The fig­ure for 2022 was $4m.

Labour has $1m ear­marked for the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil.

Con­struc­tion of an of­fi­cial res­i­dence for the Chief Jus­tice was al­lo­cat­ed $4m. Some $300,000 was al­lo­cat­ed in 2022.

New items in­clude $20m for the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion for a na­tion­al (field) ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise.

Oth­er new items in­clude:

PUB­LIC AD­MIN­IS­TRA­TION— De­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of work­force plan­ning strat­e­gy for the pub­lic ser­vices and pub­lic sec­tor in­tegri­ty plan ($1m); de­vel­op­ment of a work-from-home pol­i­cy for the pub­lic sec­tor ($1m).

PER­SON­NEL DI­VI­SION— Job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers ($1m).

THA— Af­ford­able hous­ing ($2m), Vet Di­ag­nos­tic Lab ($1m), con­struc­tion of ab­ba­toir at Hope and Rox­bor­ough ($500,000).

ED­U­CA­TION— Ch­agua­nas Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty ($5m), Es­tab­lish­ment of an avi­a­tion cen­tre at UTT Cam­den ($3.3m).

SPORTS— Host­ing of Com­mon­wealth Youth Games ($30m).

TOURISM— Sport tourism mas­ter plan ($3m).

PUB­LIC UTIL­I­TIES— New Met Ser­vice of­fice build­ing ($10m), new Met radar sys­tem ($5m).

WORKS— Pub­lic-pri­vate-part­ner­ship for the Port ($1m). Cari­com wharf re­fur­bish­ment ($5m).

OF­FICE OF THE PRIME MIN­IS­TER— One-off grant for Com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences ($2.5m).