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Friday, July 11, 2025

Tobagonians on $50M oil spill compensation:

Clear debts and assist affected fishermen

by

Elizabeth Gonzales
357 days ago
20240719

To­ba­go of­fi­cials are hop­ing that the $50 mil­lion re­ceived from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment on Wednes­day for the oil spill clean-up will be used to clear debts and as­sist af­fect­ed fish­er­men.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) con­firmed on Wednes­day night that it had re­ceived the al­lo­ca­tion from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment ear­li­er that day.

THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris told Guardian Me­dia bills must take pri­or­i­ty.

“We know that a num­ber of sup­pli­ers and ser­vices were en­gaged, and these per­sons would have ex­pend­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­sources. It is im­por­tant that pri­or­i­ty is placed on pay­ing all le­git­i­mate bills. That should be the first call.”

Mor­ris said he was aware of the plight of the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Lam­beau and along the south­east coast. This is why he felt it was im­por­tant that some of the mon­ey went to fish­er­men with ver­i­fied loss­es.

He al­so sug­gest­ed sup­port for Lam­beau res­i­dents who suf­fered med­ical com­pli­ca­tions and had to be re­lo­cat­ed.

This al­lo­ca­tion fol­lows Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s June state­ment, which crit­i­cised the THA’s orig­i­nal $153 mil­lion re­quest for lack­ing suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Im­bert, the re­duced $50 mil­lion was based on ac­tu­al in­voic­es pro­vid­ed by the as­sem­bly.

Im­bert said the funds will cov­er ex­pens­es for clean-up and re­me­di­a­tion, in­fra­struc­ture rental, ma­rine sup­port ser­vices, se­cu­ri­ty, ma­te­ri­als, sup­plies, cater­ing, and re­fur­bish­ments.

How­ev­er, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke said he was frus­trat­ed over the de­lay in aid dis­tri­b­u­tion.

“I am sad­dened by the fact that $50 mil­lion has en­tered the hands of the THA, and the fish­er­men who are clam­our­ing for jus­tice are yet to re­ceive as­sis­tance,” Duke said.

He called on the chief sec­re­tary to en­sure the funds are used to pro­vide re­lief for the fish­er­men.

Mean­while, To­ba­go chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Cur­tis Williams be­lieves even with the as­sem­bly’s best ef­fort, the mon­ey can­not bring any ease.

“If there are le­git bills com­ing out of the oil spill, I think the Gov­ern­ment should com­pen­sate them and ho­n­our them in a par­tic­u­lar way. Those con­trac­tors who are wait­ing on pay­ment for the past five months must be pri­ori­tised.”

He al­so be­lieves there should be a for­mu­la to com­pen­sate the af­fect­ed fish­er­folk.

“But pri­or­i­ty has to go to­wards those who would have worked be­cause these peo­ple have peo­ple to pay. They should strike bal­ance in clear­ing the bills.” —Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les


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