CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON�FORBES

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has pre­sent­ed a $4.3 bil­lion bud­getary es­ti­mate for the fis­cal year 2012/2013. It was pre­sent­ed yes­ter­day by Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance, Dr Anselm Lon­don, at the as­sem­bly's cham­ber on Jern­ing­ham Street, Scar­bor­ough. The pre­sen­ta­tion was ti­tled De­vel­op­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans in a De­vel­op­ing To­ba­go. It is the fi­nal pre­sen­ta­tion pre­ced­ing the THA elec­tions, card­ed for next Jan­u­ary . Read­ing of the bud­get be­gan at 10 am and last­ed for three hours and 10 min­utes. Lon­don said over­all re­cur­rent es­ti­mates amount­ed to $2.5 bil­lion.

That in­clud­ed:

• Per­son­nel ex­pen­di­ture - $761.4 mil­lion;

• goods and ser­vices - $874.3 mil­lion;

• mi­nor equip­ment pur­chas­es - $57.6 mil­lion; and

• trans­fers and sub­si­dies - $802.3 mil­lion.

He al­so not­ed that 2013 es­ti­mates for de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes to­tal $1.721 bil­lion.

That in­clud­ed:

• Pro­duc­tive sec­to s - $2.7 mil­lion;

• eco­nom­ic in­fra­struc­ture - $560.8 mil­lion;

• so­cial in­fra­struc­ture - $870.2 mil­lion; and

• mul­ti–sec­toral and oth­er ser­vices - $287.4 mil­lion

Lon­don stressed his pre­sen­ta­tion was geared at de­vel­op­men­tal ob­jec­tives which were es­sen­tial to po­si­tion To­ba­go for the fu­ture He said: "The cur­rent ob­jec­tives rep­re­sent an ex­er­cise in long-term plan­ning, with each fis­cal year over the next five years ex­pect­ed to con­tribute cu­mu­la­tive­ly to the jour­ney to the new fron­tier, a process that will de­mand more of To­bag­o­ni­ans, if we are tru­ly to take our place as part­ners in this Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go." "We recog­nise that short-term con­sid­er­a­tions can nev­er be ig­nored but we are al­so aware that be­cause the most press­ing of such is­sues have al­ready been sub­stan­tial­ly ad­dressed, To­bag­o­ni­ans must move for­ward, with our char­ac­ter­is­tic de­ter­mi­na­tion and pur­pose, to con­quer the new de­vel­op­ment fron­tier."

Lon­don said the in­tro­duc­tion of new pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives for both the el­der­ly and youth were force­ful el­e­ments that would be ini­ti­at­ed in the next fis­cal year and those in­clud­ed:

• Emer­gency So­cial Re­sponse Cards;

• emer­gency Medic-Alert Sys­tem:

• the in­clu­sion of the Youths En­er­gised for Suc­cess Pro­gramme;

• the To­ba­go Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Coun­cil; and

• the Young Pro­fes­sion­als Pro­gramme,

He not­ed the THA was con­cerned with the com­fort of To­bag­o­ni­ans with re­spect to home own­er­ship and made in­ter­ven­tions to com­plete hous­es at Rox­bor­ough, Blenheim, Cas­tara and Ad­ven­ture. Lon­don said the pro­gramme would be ex­tend­ed with­in the next fis­cal year de­spite the in­sti­tu­tion­al fi­nan­cial chal­lenges. He added: "Com­bined with ac­tu­al hous­ing con­struc­tion, the As­sem­bly will al­so ac­tive­ly en­gage in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of land to those To­bag­o­ni­ans who wish to en­gage in their own home con­struc­tion. "In sup­port of all this, the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme es­ti­mates call for an al­lo­ca­tion of $285 mil­lion for hous­ing and set­tle­ments in fis­cal 2013. "To­bag­o­ni­ans must know that while the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment is able to en­gage in long-term bor­row­ing to fi­nance home con­struc­tion, the As­sem­bly is not af­ford­ed that lux­u­ry and must fi­nance all such ac­tiv­i­ty with up-front cash and from its bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion."

Lon­don said the THA would al­so be en­gag­ing in a very sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tive el­e­ment, us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to pro­tect lo­cals and for­eign­ers alike to en­hance se­cu­ri­ty on the is­land. He added: "In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, the As­sem­bly will in­vest in a sys­tem across the length and breadth of To­ba­go, lit­er­al­ly, such as cam­eras linked to an in­for­ma­tion sys­tem, used in coun­tries, such as the Unit­ed King­dom, and will al­low for the pro­tec­tion of the cit­i­zen in all pub­lic spaces. The THA can­not be cav­a­lier with se­cu­ri­ty. It is our in­ten­tion that the word 'safe' in clean, green, safe and serene must ring through with sin­cer­i­ty," he said. Lon­don stressed that the over­ar­ch­ing ob­jec­tive would be to up­grade To­bag­o­ni­ans through ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, with the use of in­ter­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, such as Har­vard and MIT.