A cam­paign promise by Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke to pay a $1,000 “jus be­cause” bonus to all em­ploy­ees of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) could cost up­wards of $20 mil­lion, mon­ey that the THA just does not have.

Ad­dress­ing Duke’s promise made dur­ing a PDP meet­ing over the week­end yes­ter­day, cur­rent THA Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis said Duke’s promise was just not fea­si­ble.

“He has said and I don’t think his fig­ure is cor­rect, but he has said that there are some 20,000 pub­lic ser­vants on the is­land. If he gives each of them $1,000, then that is $20 mil­lion. If it is $5,000 each, then that is over $100 mil­lion. He has to ex­plain what is the au­thor­i­ty, ba­sis and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for that and al­so where is the fund­ing com­ing from,” Den­nis said.

On Sun­day, Duke, who is vy­ing for the Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle seat, promised the pay­ments to THA work­ers once the PDP wins the De­cem­ber 6 THA elec­tions.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Den­nis queried where Duke would get the fund­ing to ful­fil his promise.

“I am not aware that we have oth­er fund­ing sit­ting around for Wat­son Duke to come and make pay­ments to all pub­lic ser­vants as he promis­es,” Den­nis said.

He not­ed that some $50 mil­lion had al­ready been spent and said there was an­oth­er $50 mil­lion in the THA cof­fers to con­tin­ue help­ing the whole is­land deal with the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion.

Den­nis said the THA has spent some $10 mil­lion on food cards and food sup­port pro­grammes which helped the most vul­ner­a­ble and those im­pact­ed by the COVID-19 shut­down and an­oth­er $20 mil­lion on busi­ness grants and loans to small busi­ness­es. The THA, he said, al­so helped the tourism sec­tor at a cost of $30 mil­lion.

“And we have an­oth­er $50 mil­lion avail­able and that would al­low us to give fur­ther sup­port to small­er busi­ness­es and fur­ther sup­port to the ac­com­mo­da­tions sec­tor.

“And we are al­so go­ing to give sup­port to per­sons who are un­em­ployed as a re­sult of the pan­dem­ic, so we have that mon­ey and there is the clear jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for us to utilise that mon­ey in that way,” Den­nis said.

He said the THA is cur­rent­ly fo­cused on pay­ing up all gra­tu­ities.

“As a mat­ter of fact, last year we be­gan an ex­er­cise to clear up all gra­tu­ities, es­pe­cial­ly those dat­ed be­fore 2017,” he said.

He said so far, hun­dreds of out­stand­ing gra­tu­ities have been reg­u­larised and they are treat­ing with out­stand­ing pay­ments to work­ers.

“Pub­lic ser­vants must be paid, any monies owed to them,” he said.

Den­nis al­so warned Duke that the THA was not the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), the union Duke has head­ed since 2008.

“Well clear­ly, Wat­son Duke be­lieves that the THA is the PSA, where he can go in there and be Lord and God and pass what­ev­er fool­ish, sense­less or­ders and that they are go­ing to be car­ried out,” he said.

“Even if, God for­bid, the PDP is to win and he is to get any­where near to the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, there are a group of pro­fes­sion­al and ex­pe­ri­enced pub­lic ser­vants who are ad­min­is­tra­tors and when­ev­er you com­ing to them, you must come cor­rect.”

“If he feels that the THA would be a place where he can just pass or­ders and lease Range Rovers and oth­er high-end ve­hi­cles and lease build­ings and res­i­dences and utilise pub­lic re­sources for his own per­son­al and self­ish in­ter­est, then he bet­ter think again,” Den­nis warned.

He said for Duke to make such a “hap­haz­ard” promise, showed the type of leader he would be.

“That half-baked idea just pulled from out of the clear blue sky, where he thinks that he can just go in there and or­der the THA to pay all pub­lic ser­vants, con­tract or oth­er­wise, a bonus, just like that. No idea of where the mon­ey is go­ing to come from,” Den­nis said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to reach the head of the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine and PDP deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine for com­ment yes­ter­day.

While David­son-Ce­les­tine promised a re­sponse, it was not pro­vid­ed up to press time and Au­gus­tine did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.