Stephon Nicholas

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has launched To­ba­go ID, a dig­i­tal plat­form al­low­ing res­i­dents to ac­cess and track ser­vices of­fered by the THA’s di­vi­sions, de­part­ments and com­pa­nies on­line.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine urged To­bag­o­ni­ans to reg­is­ter, say­ing there was “noth­ing to fear” and en­cour­ag­ing res­i­dents to take pride in hav­ing their To­ba­go ID.

Au­gus­tine said the plat­form will al­low users to track the sta­tus of ap­pli­ca­tions and is part of ef­forts to digi­tise the As­sem­bly’s op­er­a­tions and im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He said digi­ti­sa­tion would al­so al­low the THA to in­ter­vene more quick­ly when nec­es­sary, pre­vent­ing bu­reau­cra­cy from be­ing used as an ex­cuse for de­lays or poor per­for­mance.

Au­gus­tine al­so an­nounced that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty ad­min­is­tra­tion’s $500 month­ly ba­by grant takes ef­fect to­day.

The grant, which is in­tend­ed to help ad­dress To­ba­go’s de­clin­ing birthrate, will be paid to par­ents of new­borns and is retroac­tive to Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

“That ba­by grant ac­tu­al­ly be­gins on Sep­tem­ber 1. Just go on­line, get your To­ba­go ID, sign up for that ba­by grant, en­sure you have your cor­rect bank­ing in­fo and voilà, $500 every month, and it is retroac­tive from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.”

Au­gus­tine ac­knowl­edged that $500 a month would not be enough to raise a child, but said the mon­ey could help par­ents save or pur­chase ba­sic items.

The grant will be avail­able un­til the child turns five and will com­ple­ment the ba­by box pro­vid­ed by the THA’s Di­vi­sion of Health and Well­ness.