Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is call­ing for “a fair share” in the na­tion­al bud­get as he eyes “a con­struc­tion boom” in To­ba­go in the new fis­cal year.

Speak­ing to the me­dia on Thurs­day in Rox­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go needs an in­jec­tion of $1 bil­lion to de­vel­op the is­land.

On June 25, Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts re­quest­ed $4.12 bil­lion from cen­tral gov­ern­ment dur­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion for 2026/2027.

Au­gus­tine said, “We have al­ways got around $2 bil­lion on the re­cur­rent side, and not even $500 mil­lion on the cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment side. That is where we re­al­ly need the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.”

In the 2025/2026 na­tion­al bud­get, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­lo­cat­ed $2.96 bil­lion for the THA with just $201.5 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment.

Au­gus­tine is hop­ing his next bud­get would see sig­nif­i­cant re­sources trick­le down through­out the twin-is­land state.

“I think, as a coun­try, we need to see some sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic move­ment on the ground, gen­er­al­ly, and I think com­ing out of the bud­get, I am hop­ing it would spawn things like a con­struc­tion boom and a flur­ry of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

“I al­so want to see mea­sures that would at­tract for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. We need to look ex­ter­nal to Trinidad and To­ba­go for our eco­nom­ic fu­ture.”

Au­gus­tine added that pro­duc­tiv­i­ty out­side the oil-and-gas sec­tor must be el­e­vat­ed, as he looked to agri­cul­ture to help boost food se­cu­ri­ty,

The THA has tak­en steps to dou­ble agri­cul­ture’s out­put in the next fis­cal year through mega farms and re­pur­pos­ing Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) work­ers in­to farm­ing.

The as­sem­bly­man said tourism is a pil­lar of the THA’s plan to de­vel­op the is­land.

“Tourism is def­i­nite­ly a pri­or­i­ty for us, es­pe­cial­ly with this thrust of ex­ten­sive mar­ket­ing in North Amer­i­ca, to in­crease the num­ber of di­rect ar­rivals to To­ba­go.”

How­ev­er, he said the tourism sec­tor is not with­out its chal­lenges, which need to be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly.

“We need to fix our ho­tel rooms and im­prove our game when it comes to cus­tomer ser­vice. We have to spend more when it comes to mar­ket­ing To­ba­go.”

He added that au­ton­o­my re­mains a goal of the THA and be­lieves that af­ter 50 years of be­ing a Re­pub­lic, Trinidad and To­ba­go is ready to grant To­ba­go self-gov­er­nance.