In his al­most two-hour re­sponse to the 2022/2023 bud­get pre­sent­ed by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine last Thurs­day, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris wad­ed in­to sev­er­al as­pects of the pre­sen­ta­tion.

One key point for Mor­ris was the re­la­tion­ship be­tween To­ba­go and the Gov­ern­ment.

He de­scribed what he called a trou­bling sit­u­a­tion caused by an “an­ti­quat­ed, an­tag­o­nis­tic, com­bat­ive ap­proach tak­en by the Chief Sec­re­tary in his re­la­tion­ship with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment.”

Mor­ris said the way pay­ments were dis­persed to To­ba­go has im­proved, an in­di­ca­tion that the Gov­ern­ment is will­ing to work with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­gard­less of who is in charge of it.

“I would rec­om­mend that the Chief Sec­re­tary tem­per his rhetoric and I wish to ad­vise him to adopt a more con­sul­ta­tive ap­proach to his re­la­tion­ship with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment,” Mor­ris said on Tues­day.

As it re­lates to the $3.97 bil­lion fis­cal pack­age, the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader asked the Fi­nance, Trade and Econ­o­my Sec­re­tary if he does not re­ceive the en­tire amount when the na­tion­al bud­get is read, what would be his plans.

“What are your pri­or­i­ties?”

Mor­ris al­so chas­tised the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) for how it is treat­ing with the is­sue of au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go. He called it po­lit­i­cal games.

He said the PDP is yet to ar­tic­u­late a clear po­si­tion on what kind of gov­er­nance sys­tem it wants for To­ba­go.

“The PDP seems to have three dis­tinct­ly vary­ing po­si­tions by its three lead­ers, much like the An­i­mal Farm. Squeal­er wants fed­er­a­tion, Snow­ball wants se­ces­sion but wants to be prime min­is­ter of Trinidad both at the same time and well, Napoleon play­ing right down the mid­dle,” he said.

An­oth­er ma­jor top­ic for the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader was health­care.

He out­right­ly ques­tioned the pro­posed al­lo­ca­tion and sug­gest­ed that it was in­ad­e­quate.

“It is our re­spect­ful view that 600 mil­lion dol­lars is in­suf­fi­cient to ef­fec­tive­ly re­source the pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary fa­cil­i­ties of the TRHA (To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty),” he said.

He al­so asked that the TRHA board be ap­point­ed.

Mor­ris al­so wad­ed in­to what he called a “strug­gling” tourism sec­tor on the is­land.

He blamed the PDP while mak­ing a case for the San­dals Re­sort.

“You now want to em­brace Mar­i­ott, even Mar­i­ott you didn’t want. So it is kind of disin­gen­u­ous, high­ly hyp­o­crit­i­cal, for you to come here now and pre­tend that you want to build out more rooms when you were the ones pre­vent­ing more rooms from com­ing to To­ba­go.

“San­dals is the gem of re­sorts in the Caribbean, it is the most well-known brand in the Caribbean and we run that out of here. You, the PDP, ran that out of here,” he said.

Mor­ris la­belled the theme of his bud­get re­sponse as “Em­pow­er­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans through sus­tain­able and in­no­v­a­tive poli­cies, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for all.”

He al­so pre­sent­ed sev­er­al plans and poli­cies which he rec­om­mend­ed would im­prove the lives of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

In his wind-up of the de­bate, Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine re­spond­ed to sev­er­al of the con­cerns raised and state­ments made by the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader.

He as­sured the cham­ber that he had no plans of tem­per­ing his ap­proach when deal­ing with the Gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.

“Let me make it very clear­ly in this House, if one wants to take our re­newed sense of con­fi­dence as To­bag­o­ni­ans as be­ing ag­gres­sive, then so be it. I have long learnt that an in­tel­li­gent and self-con­fi­dent To­bag­on­ian is feared by many...

“Let me be clear, I have nev­er been known to be hushed and soft and it will not start now, cer­tain­ly not when so much is at stake with To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my,” Au­gus­tine said.