Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine will send a re­quest to the Min­istry of Fi­nance for a to­tal of $3.97 bil­lion from the na­tion­al bud­get and plans to set up an out­post in Port-of-Spain to lob­by for To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.

It al­so pro­posed the re­moval of the Land Li­cens­ing regime to at­tract more di­rect in­vest­ment, the cre­ation of a To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Bank, a $60 mil­lion fund to as­sist busi­ness­es to re­cov­er from COVID-19 and foot­ing the bill to have the Arthur NR Robin­son Aiport re­opened un­til 1.30 am.

THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine spent close to four hours read­ing the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots' (PDP's) first bud­get in the THA Cham­ber in up­town Scar­bor­ough Thurs­day, say­ing the fig­ure rep­re­sents 6.9 per cent of what he es­ti­mates the na­tion­al bud­get to be.

He in­sist­ed that the 6.9 per cent, the up­per lim­it for To­ba­go from a rul­ing of the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sions more than 20 years ago, is crit­i­cal to the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the econ­o­my, which, he said, now has li­a­bil­i­ties rep­re­sent­ing 57 per cent of the is­land's Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct.

"If they were so in­ter­est­ed and love To­ba­go it would be no prob­lem to give us 6.9 per cent," he said.

In a sit­ting that start­ed 20 min­utes late as the As­sem­bly wait­ed on Au­gus­tine and oth­er mem­bers' ar­rival, Au­gus­tine ar­gued the need for To­ba­go to get the au­ton­o­my it has been clam­our­ing for and an­nounced that the THA will set up an of­fice on Pem­broke Street in Port-of-Spain to lob­by To­bag­o­ni­ans liv­ing in Trinidad to­ward full au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go.

The of­fice, Au­gus­tine said, will al­so be used to as­sist To­bag­o­ni­ans with ease of do­ing busi­ness and al­so to push the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment to re­con­sid­er the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my Bill.

The move to have the air­port open un­til 1.30-2 am is to at­tract more tourism to To­ba­go.

Au­gus­tine told the As­sem­bly that the THA will move to fund the lat­er open­ing, at a cost of $16,800 a day.

He said the THA will move to have the Land Li­cens­ing regime re­moved in a bid to al­low more peo­ple to in­vest in To­ba­go.

A mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy will be put in place to en­sure To­ba­go is more well known world­wide and he has al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to re­store the To­ba­go desk at mis­sions across the world.

Oth­er mea­sures in­clud­ed a To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Bank for the bet­ter man­age­ment of all THA af­fairs and to en­hance prospects of de­vel­op­ment on the is­land, the es­tab­lish­ment of a Trade Unit to as­sist busi­ness­es with a greater reach and pro­vide bet­ter link­ages for trade, the de­vel­op­ment of two mega-farms of not less than 100 acres each and fur­ther dis­cus­sions on two tourism projects that could pro­vide an ex­tra 850 rooms on the is­land.

The $3.97 bil­lion in­cludes re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture of $3.07 bil­lion and a de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme of $900 mil­lion.