A to­tal of at least $682 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture projects in To­ba­go in the 2024 fis­cal year, ac­cord­ing to Mon­day’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert.

He said the al­lo­ca­tion to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) in fis­cal 2024 to­tals $2.585 bil­lion, of which $2.298 bil­lion is re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $27.2 mil­lion for URP and CEPEP with $260 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture.

Im­bert said be­yond the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion to the THA, an ad­di­tion­al $678.5 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed to var­i­ous min­istries and state agen­cies to un­der­take and ex­e­cute ma­jor projects in To­ba­go in keep­ing with their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty un­der the Sixth Sched­ule of the THA Act 40 of 1996.

He said some of the ex­pen­di­ture by Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in 2024, fund­ed out­side of the THA’s bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion, but es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go, will in­clude ex­pen­di­ture on the:

• To­ba­go Air­port Ter­mi­nal project at a cost of $400 mil­lion;

• Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion Head­quar­ters at a cost of $1.9 mil­lion;

• De­silt­ing of the Hills­bor­ough Dam at a cost of $7.5 mil­lion;

• Up­grade of the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre in Golds­bor­ough at a cost of $1 mil­lion;

• To­ba­go Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre at a cost of $1 mil­lion;

• UTT To­ba­go Cam­pus at a cost of $600,000;

• Up­grade of Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um at a cost of $4 mil­lion;

• Lit­tle Rock­ley Bay sta­bi­liza­tion works for Mag­dale­na Ho­tel at a cost of $3 mil­lion; and

• Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices equip­ment at a cost of $3 mil­lion.

This ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture, which is in ad­di­tion to To­ba­go’s $260 mil­lion de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture, comes up to $422 mil­lion.

Fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the fis­cal pack­age by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine had con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s al­lo­ca­tion to the as­sem­bly, as de­spite a $64 mil­lion in­crease, he pre­dict­ed that fund­ing woes will con­tin­ue to plague To­ba­go for yet an­oth­er year.

Shel­ter

Hous­ing and shel­ter were al­so key el­e­ments in the PSIP as the sum of $20.8 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to pro­vide To­bag­o­ni­ans with af­ford­able hous­ing and shel­ter, while con­tin­u­ing to as­sist home own­ers with fi­nanc­ing for home re­pairs and im­prove­ments.

These funds will be dis­bursed through var­i­ous projects and pro­grammes, in­clud­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, home im­prove­ment grants pro­vid­ing suc­cess­ful qual­i­fied ap­pli­cants with grant fund­ing up to $7,500; home im­prove­ment sub­sidy aimed at pro­vid­ing suc­cess­ful qual­i­fied ap­pli­cants with grant fund­ing up to $10,000; the Shir­van Road Land De­vel­op­ment for the con­struct­ing new hous­ing units; and the de­vel­op­ment of land for air­port re­lo­ca­tion.

Law and or­der

Pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of To­bag­o­ni­ans were al­so in fo­cus in fis­cal 2024 pack­age as sev­er­al mea­sures are planned.

For in­stance, the TTPS is seek­ing to es­tab­lish a Mount­ed and Ca­nine Branch at the Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion, To­ba­go.

It is in­tend­ed that the es­tab­lish­ment of this branch will im­prove the op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the TTPS in To­ba­go in the im­me­di­ate to short term, and will as­sist in re­duc­ing crime.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Hall of Jus­tice, To­ba­go project will re­ceive an al­lo­ca­tion of $2.7 mil­lion in fis­cal 2024 for on­go­ing works in the re­con­fig­u­ra­tion of the court for crim­i­nal court con­ver­sion. The works in­clude elec­tri­cal up­grade, the in­stal­la­tion of a cen­tral AC sys­tem, el­e­va­tor re­place­ments and roof re­pairs.

Re­fur­bish­ment of Mag­is­trate’s Court in To­ba­go in­clude the re­pur­pos­ing and re­fur­bish­ment works to fa­cil­i­tate com­pli­ance with the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act. That would en­tail up­grades to the elec­tri­cal, wa­ter and sew­er in­fra­struc­ture, in­stal­la­tion of dry fire sup­pres­sion sys­tems and se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture, as well as as­sess­ment and test­ing of the build­ing, in­clu­sive of struc­tur­al me­chan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal and plumb­ing.

Ed­u­ca­tion

Re­gard­ing ed­u­ca­tion, the THA Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion has been al­lo­cat­ed $29.7 mil­lion for the con­tin­ued man­age­ment of all pub­lic Ear­ly Child­hood Care Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE), pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

The al­lo­ca­tion will be dis­trib­uted as fol­lows: Ear­ly Child­hood Ed­u­ca­tion re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $1.1 mil­lion; the Pri­ma­ry Schools Pro­gramme has been al­lo­cat­ed $5.6 for school and the Sec­ondary School Pro­gramme will ben­e­fit from an al­lo­ca­tion of $11.3 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2024.

The PSIP al­so took note to To­ba­go’s cul­ture not­ing that a ma­jor at­trac­tion for tourism in To­ba­go is the beau­ti­ful his­tor­i­cal hous­es, build­ings and sites across the is­land.

Re­gard­ing ca­pac­i­ty build­ing/in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing the PSIP out­lined that through ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, the THA will con­tin­ue to in­vest in a num­ber of projects which are de­signed to build hu­man and in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty with­in its Di­vi­sions.

For fis­cal 2024, re­sources in the sum of $1.3 mil­lion have been al­lo­cat­ed to­wards in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing of the di­vi­sions of the THA for the de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of a strate­gic plan, which fo­cus­es on the di­vi­sions’ vi­sion and mis­sion; hu­man re­sources de­vel­op­ment for the pay­ment of tu­ition and aca­d­e­m­ic fees for new and re­turn­ing stu­dents at lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions; tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance pro­gramme for the de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of an As­sem­bly Per­for­mance man­age­ment frame­work and to con­duct a pub­lic in­vest­ment man­age­ment as­sess­ment.

Tourism

The doc­u­ment fur­ther de­tailed that the restora­tion of these at­trac­tions will sig­nif­i­cant­ly add val­ue to the is­land’s of­fer­ing and tourism prod­uct. In this re­gard, a to­tal of $0.6 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to un­der­take restora­tion works on Goat Is­land; Spey­side Wa­ter Wheel; Rox­bor­ough Co­coa House; In­di­go House in Par­latu­vi­er; Wind­mills and wells at Ca­noe Bay; Gravesites at Fort Gran­by; Arnos Vale Wa­ter Wheel; Wind­mill at Mo­ria; and the con­struc­tion of toi­let fa­cil­i­ties at ma­jor his­tor­i­cal sites.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the THA has been al­lo­cat­ed $2.9 mil­lion to con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of sea trans­port in­fra­struc­ture which will in­clude the con­struc­tion of a jet­ty at Par­latu­vi­er; con­struc­tion of a jet­ty at Bird of Par­adise Is­land; con­struc­tion of a Jet­ty at Cove and Ply­mouth; and the es­tab­lish­ment of a Ma­rine Park Con­trol Unit at Gib­son Jet­ty.

The de­vel­op­ment of an ef­fi­cient, safe, and re­li­able trans­port sec­tor in To­ba­go, is crit­i­cal for the achieve­ment of so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment through the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of trade and trav­el.

In To­ba­go, the fo­cus will con­tin­ue to be on the fol­low­ing trans­port sub-sec­tors for fis­cal 2024.

This in­cludes the con­struc­tion of bus shel­ters and bus stops project will con­tin­ue un­der the THA in fis­cal 2024, with an al­lo­ca­tion of $0.5 mil­lion. This will be utilised for the con­struc­tion/re­fur­bish­ment of 20 bus stops in To­ba­go. The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) has been al­lo­cat­ed the sum of $2.0 mil­lion to con­tin­ue to ex­e­cute projects in To­ba­go on be­half of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) such as the up­grade of Berthing In­fra­struc­ture at the Port of Scar­bor­ough and the de­vel­op­ment of a Ma­ri­na Fa­cil­i­ty in To­ba­go.

Re­gard­ing air trans­porta­tion, works will al­so con­tin­ue in To­ba­go with an al­lo­ca­tion in the sum of $4.7 mil­lion un­der the Air­port Au­thor­i­ty­of T&T (AATT), for the mod­erni­sa­tion of the air­port.

ICT

The PSIP al­so not­ed that In­for­ma­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) is a very im­por­tant com­po­nent of the coun­try’s growth, adding that the sum of $6.8 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for the up­grade of ICT in­fra­struc­ture.

Some ac­tiv­i­ties to be un­der­tak­en by the THA in this re­gard in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of a Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (GIS) plat­form for the con­duct of an en­ter­prise needs as­sess­ment and readi­ness; digi­tis­ing the THA’s op­er­a­tions for the preser­va­tion of doc­u­ments and im­prove­ment of the ef­fi­cien­cy of the THA and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy strength­en­ing for ICT up­grades to var­i­ous de­part­ments to au­to­mate busi­ness process­es.

Util­i­ties

In fis­cal 2024, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) will con­tin­ue to work with the THA to pro­vide a re­li­able, ef­fi­cient and sus­tain­able wa­ter sup­ply, in­clud­ing safe waste wa­ter man­age­ment to its cus­tomers in To­ba­go.

To this end, the sum of $7.5 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for the con­tin­u­a­tion of the de­silt­ing and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Hills­bor­ough Dam. Ac­cord­ing to the PSIP, this can lead to an in­crease in wa­ter stor­age of 50 mil­lion gal­lons, and ben­e­fit ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15,000 per­sons, in 13 ar­eas of To­ba­go East.