Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s al­lo­ca­tion to the as­sem­bly, as de­spite a $64 mil­lion in­crease, he pre­dicts fund­ing woes will con­tin­ue to plague To­ba­go for yet an­oth­er year.

The to­tal al­lo­ca­tion for To­ba­go in 2024 amounts to $2.585 bil­lion, with $2.298 bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $260 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture and $18 mil­lion for the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

This al­lo­ca­tion rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant boost of $64.2 mil­lion com­pared to the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year’s al­lo­ca­tion of $2.521 bil­lion.

How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine said the 4.35 per cent al­lo­ca­tion in the Bud­get still falls far be­low the rec­om­mend­ed range pro­posed by the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion and agreed up­on by Par­lia­ment in 2001.

Speak­ing via What­sApp mes­sage, Au­gus­tine told Guardian Me­dia he was frus­trat­ed over the lack­lus­ter al­lo­ca­tion.

He said, “We could have all stayed at home, turned off our tele­vi­sions and prac­ti­cal­ly pre­dict­ed what the THA would be al­lo­cat­ed. It does not even inch close to the mid­dle per­centile of the range rec­om­mend­ed by the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion and agreed to by Par­lia­ment in 2001.”

The THA is al­so ex­pect­ed to re­ceive its full al­lo­ca­tion for fis­cal year 2023. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, an ex­tra $678.5 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to var­i­ous min­istries and state agen­cies to ex­e­cute ma­jor projects in To­ba­go, ex­ceed­ing the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion to the THA.

Au­gus­tine spoke about the lack of trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing funds al­lo­cat­ed to To­ba­go through Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies.

“We con­tin­ue to hear about the mil­lions to be spent by oth­er min­istries in To­ba­go on the six sched­uled items, but we nev­er get ac­count­abil­i­ty for if and how those monies are re­al­ly spent in To­ba­go. This lack of trans­paren­cy ex­ac­er­bates the chal­lenge of en­sur­ing ef­fec­tive util­i­sa­tion of funds for the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment,’’ Au­gus­tine said.

Com­pound­ing these is­sues, he high­light­ed the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing state of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in To­ba­go.

De­spite not hav­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sev­er­al key se­cu­ri­ty items, Au­gus­tine not­ed that the THA is con­sis­tent­ly asked to de­vi­ate from its le­gal man­date and as­sist the se­cu­ri­ty forces on a dai­ly ba­sis.

He lament­ed that this is a strain on re­sources that fur­ther lim­its the THA’s abil­i­ty to al­lo­cate funds to­wards its own de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives.

He said the THA has been left with a lim­it­ed bud­get of $260 mil­lion for its de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in 2024.

This amount is ex­pect­ed to cov­er a range of cru­cial ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing road works and in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ments, sports and com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ty com­ple­tions, debt re­pay­ment to con­trac­tors, build­ing ren­o­va­tions, school re­pairs, schol­ar­ship and bur­sary pro­grammes for young peo­ple, up­grades to health­care fa­cil­i­ties, and im­prove­ments to tourism plants and beach fa­cil­i­ties.

He said, “Ev­i­dent­ly, the THA’s lim­it­ed al­lo­ca­tion will not be suf­fi­cient to meet the grow­ing needs of the is­land.”

Deputy Chief sec­re­tary Faith B. Yis­rael al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment de­spite the in­crease in bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion.

She said, “It seems that the Gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly try­ing to use the bud­get to en­sure the peo­ple of To­ba­go don’t re­alise the kind of de­vel­op­ment that we think we de­serve.”

Mean­while, chair­man of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, Cur­tis Dou­glas, wel­comed the in­crease but is con­cerned about how the THA will use the ad­di­tion­al $64 mil­lion.

Sim­i­lar­ly, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­pha Lord thanked the Gov­ern­ment for the in­crease to the is­land’s al­lo­ca­tion.

He said, “Every pen­ny we re­ceive is great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed and it would go to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land. But a lot of that mon­ey would be di­rect­ed to re­cur­ring ex­pen­di­ture and not a lot of sig­nif­i­cant new in­vest­ment.”