Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has made it clear it will not ac­cept any­thing less than 5.9 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get as its al­lo­ca­tion for the fis­cal year 2025/2026.

Last year, the THA re­quest­ed $3.9 bil­lion and re­ceived $2.59 bil­lion in the na­tion­al bud­get.

In her first-ever bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion yes­ter­day, THA Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance Petal-Ann Roberts re­quest­ed a to­tal of $3.71 bil­lion based on what she said was “a pro­ject­ed na­tion­al bud­get of $63.5 bil­lion.”

“Let me state here, Madam Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer, that any al­lo­ca­tion to the THA in fis­cal 2026 that is less than 5.9 per cent will con­sti­tute a non-al­le­vi­a­tion of the per capi­ta ex­pen­di­ture in­equal­i­ty that has de­fined the na­tion­al bud­get and its ap­pro­pri­a­tion bill since 1962,” Roberts said.

“Ba­si­cal­ly, all To­ba­go is re­quest­ing is per capi­ta ex­pen­di­ture equal­i­ty as a min­i­mum rev­enue share to the THA, based pri­mar­i­ly on the is­land’s pop­u­la­tion as a per­cent­age share of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion. In dol­lars and cents, this is cal­cu­lat­ed as $5.90 out of every $100 in pro­posed na­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture in fis­cal 2026.”

Roberts said the days of To­ba­go re­ceiv­ing less than its fair share must end.

“To­day is not the day,” she said.

“We have raised the bar. Un­like the PNM, we don’t see ex­cus­es as de­liv­er­ables.”

This marked the fi­nal bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion of the cur­rent THA term, which ends in De­cem­ber. Roberts used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on the THA’s achieve­ments and laid out the plans for the is­land’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

In an emo­tion­al mo­ment, she re­mind­ed the As­sem­bly that this was the first time a woman was pre­sent­ing a THA bud­get in the is­land’s his­to­ry.

“This is my maid­en bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion and the first to be pre­sent­ed by a fe­male Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance in the 45-year his­to­ry of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly,” she said.

She thanked Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for trust­ing her with the fi­nance port­fo­lio, which he gave up dur­ing a reshuf­fle last year.

Roberts al­so took aim at the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led THA and cen­tral gov­ern­ment, blam­ing them for leav­ing be­hind more than $1 bil­lion in un­paid debts.

“In our re­strict­ed space, we man­aged and paid ap­prox­i­mate­ly $300 mil­lion for re­cur­rent li­a­bil­i­ties and over $75 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme debts owed to con­trac­tors with­out com­pro­mis­ing our de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme and ser­vice de­liv­ery,” she said.

She al­so claimed that ac­cess to grant fund­ing had been stalled un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.

“Over a year ago, the IDB ap­proved US$100,000 to as­sist the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance… Notwith­stand­ing sev­er­al let­ters and phone calls… up to to­day, the non-ob­jec­tion let­ter was not sent to the IDB for the THA to ac­cess this much-need­ed fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance,” Roberts said.

De­spite the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, Roberts said the THA had made progress in gov­er­nance and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fis­cal 2026 fis­cal pack­age sig­ni­fies a piv­otal mo­ment in our col­lec­tive jour­ney to trans­form To­ba­go in­to a pros­per­ous econ­o­my de­fined by sus­tain­able growth and fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty,” she said.

She al­so cel­e­brat­ed the com­ple­tion and tabling of six years of fi­nan­cial state­ments, which she said was a first in the THA’s his­to­ry.

“This is in­deed his­toric, as for the first time in the his­to­ry of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, our fi­nan­cial state­ments are com­plet­ed, pub­li­cised, and ready for au­dit,” she said.

“It stands as a tes­ta­ment to this ad­min­is­tra­tion’s stead­fast ded­i­ca­tion to good gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy, and pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The bud­get’s theme was “Ac­cel­er­at­ing Growth, An­chor­ing Fis­cal Sta­bil­i­ty.”

Roberts said tar­get­ed in­vest­ments would be made in tourism, agri­cul­ture, in­fra­struc­ture, dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, ed­u­ca­tion, health­care and sup­port for small busi­ness­es.

She made a fi­nal push for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, say­ing the is­land must have the right to bor­row, man­age its own af­fairs, and ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al fund­ing with­out Port-of- Spain’s ap­proval.

“The THA is cur­rent­ly con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and leg­isla­tive­ly de­barred from ex­er­cis­ing any fis­cal au­thor­i­ty,” she said. “Fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty … can on­ly be an­chored by the ef­fec­tive and mean­ing­ful com­ple­tion of the decades-old, on­go­ing in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment project,” she said.

2025–2026 THA Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion break­down

• To­tal Re­quest­ed: $3.71B

• Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture: $2.71B

• As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture – $25.7M

• Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary – $184.4M

• Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my – $262.1M

• Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion – $179.5M

• Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy – $476.5M

• Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sport – $122.6M

• Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment – $381.7M

• Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment – $188.6M

• Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion – $845.6M

• Di­vi­sion of Set­tle­ments, Pub­lic Util­i­ties and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment – $43.2M

• URP: $91.9M

• CEPEP: $43.4M