Fi­nance Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Joel Jack yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed a $4.3 bil­lion bud­get.In his maid­en bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, which last­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly three hours, Jack com­plained that To­ba­go is be­ing short changed by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. He said the fi­nan­cial short­falls have af­fect­ed sev­er­al de­vel­op­ment and so­cial pro­grammes and forced the THA to dip in­to its re­serves."To­tal ex­pen­di­ture by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly in fis­cal 2012 amount­ed to $2,271,486,114. Re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­tures rep­re­sent­ed $1,478,398,215 of the to­tal and de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­tures amount­ed to $411,508,448. Con­tin­gen­cies Ac­count ex­pen­di­ture and oth­er op­er­at­ing ex­pen­di­ture amount­ed to $271,466,026 and $25,198,085 re­spec­tive­ly," he said."To­tal ex­pen­di­ture in­creased by $273,102,800 in fis­cal 2012 –equiv­a­lent to a 14 per cent in­crease over the pre­vi­ous year," he said.

As a re­sult, Jack said, the THA's Con­tin­gen­cies Ac­count was used to fi­nance sev­er­al im­por­tant projects and pro­grammes, in­clud­ing a road resur­fac­ing pro­gramme, at a cost of $81.4 mil­lion; con­tin­ued work on the Shaw Park Recre­ation­al Grounds and Cul­tur­al Com­plex, at $56.7 mil­lion; up­grade and con­struc­tion of mul­ti­pur­pose com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties in Belle Gar­den, Lam­beau,Spey­side and Low­lands, at a to­tal cost of $22.3 mil­lion; the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep), at $14.2 mil­lion; and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme ((URP) at a cost of $41 mil­lion."This ex­plains why pro­grammes like Cepep an URP would have had to be closed down had not been for the use of bud­getary sav­ings where they oc­cur to sup­port such pro­grammes," he said.

On a more pos­i­tive note, Jack said To­ba­go had been award­ed a Baa1 rat­ing by in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ing agency, Moody's–the first such sub-sov­er­eign rat­ing is­sued in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean."This rat­ing un­der­scores the steady progress that the As­sem­bly has been mak­ing in man­ag­ing its fi­nances; and pro­vides an in­di­ca­tion of To­ba­go's cred­it­wor­thi­ness and its ca­pac­i­ty to en­ter the cap­i­tal mar­ket on its own, to is­sue fi­nan­cial in­stru­ments in sup­port of To­ba­go's de­vel­op­ment," he said.Jack said the en­er­gy sec­tor has a crit­i­cal role to play in To­ba­go's de­vel­op­men­tal thrust."While we ac­knowl­edge the re­cent ef­forts of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to boost oil and nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion at the na­tion­al lev­el, we need to em­pha­sise that To­ba­go can­not, and must not, be ig­nored or left out of any dis­cus­sion, strat­e­gy or plan to ex­ploit the oil and gas re­sources that lie in its sur­round­ing wa­ters," he said."On the broad­er strate­gic and de­vel­op­men­tal front, To­ba­go sees its over­all en­er­gy thrust as a two-pronged strat­e­gy aimed at not on­ly bet­ter har­ness­ing the hy­dro­car­bon re­sources in its wa­ters but al­so proac­tive­ly de­vel­op­ing al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy schemes."

Jack said To­ba­go's econ­o­my is al­so ham­pered by a large un­em­ploy­ment rate. One in every five young adults is un­em­ployed in To­ba­go. He said da­ta pro­vid­ed by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice in 2012 shows that 20 per cent of To­ba­go's labour force be­tween the ages of 20 and 24 are un­em­ployed.He told the THA: "A break­down of these da­ta by gen­der re­veals that, with­in this age group, 27.8 per cent of males and 8.3 per cent of fe­males are un­em­ployed. This ad­min­is­tra­tion recog­nis­es the con­se­quent need to grow the econ­o­my and cre­ate more jobs, es­pe­cial­ly in the pri­vate sec­tor; and to en­sure a bet­ter match be­tween the skills need­ed by em­ploy­ers and the skill-sets of our young adults."Pro­grammes put in place by this ad­min­is­tra­tion, such as the Youth En­er­gized for Suc­cess, are de­signed to help us as­sess and ad­dress this lat­ter is­sue, in or­der to equip young adults for self-em­ploy­ment and for the jobs that are, or soon will be, avail­able."

Jack said eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go al­so re­quires that the THA play a more fa­cil­i­tat­ing role with the pri­vate sec­tor tak­ing a greater and more proac­tive po­si­tion as the en­gine of growth. "By its out­lay of $20 mil­lion to the THA Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Eq­ui­ty Fund, the As­sem­bly has demon­strat­ed its pre­pared­ness to lead this trans­for­ma­tion of the To­ba­go econ­o­my," he said."The man­date of the Fund is to part­ner with the pri­vate sec­tor to pro­vide eq­ui­ty cap­i­tal to sup­port sus­tain­able high-yield busi­ness start-ups which meet the in­vest­ment cri­te­ria of the Fund. To date, the Fund has re­ceived sev­er­al busi­ness pro­pos­als in four of its six pri­or­i­ty sec­tors. It has com­mit­ted cap­i­tal to two green field com­pa­nies, both in the light man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor; and con­tin­ues to work with these com­pa­nies to fast- track ear­ly start-up dates."It is en­vis­aged that, by the end of 2013, the Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Eq­ui­ty Fund will have part­nered with en­tre­pre­neurs in all six pri­or­i­ty sec­tors in at least eight (8) in­vestee com­pa­nies. To­ba­go's eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion has be­gun; and the THA Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Eq­ui­ty Fund is play­ing a ma­jor role in reengi­neer­ing its en­tre­pre­neur­ship."

The largest chunk of the THA bud­get–$845.7 mil­lion–will go to the Di­vi­sion of Health and So­cial Ser­vices, while the sec­ond largest al­lo­ca­tion of $536.2 mil­lion is for Ed­u­ca­tion, Youth Af­fairs and Sport."To­ba­go has grown faster than the na­tion­al av­er­age: be­tween 2000 and 2011, the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion grew by 0.5 per cent per an­num, while the pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go grew by 1.1 per cent. As a re­sult, To­ba­go's share of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion stood at over 4.58 per cent. Thus, sim­ply on the ba­sis of pop­u­la­tion, the crude mea­sure on which the present DRC is based, To­ba­go would be en­ti­tled to no less than 4.58 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get, with­out fac­tor­ing the catch-up com­po­nent""To­ba­go has long gone past the mind-set of a low­ly men­di­cant–meek and mild and well con­tent­ed and well-be­haved in its is­land-ward sta­tus. Nei­ther pau­perism nor men­di­can­cy has ever been, or is now, part of To­ba­go's her­itage" Jack said.