Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Wat­son Duke has la­belled the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) de­ci­sion to re­strict ex­pen­di­ture to 2023 lev­els in 2025 as an elec­tion ploy, and one he is pre­dict­ing will leave To­ba­go in dis­ar­ray.

In a live so­cial me­dia video yes­ter­day, Duke ar­gued that the as­sem­bly’s de­ci­sion to re­duce spend­ing now, af­ter al­ready ex­haust­ing $7.5 bil­lion over the last three years, was a last-minute tac­tic that failed to ad­dress the is­land’s re­al de­vel­op­ment needs.

This comes af­ter Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts, fol­low­ing a two-day THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil re­treat, said that the THA’s 2024 fis­cal year would pri­ori­tise con­serv­ing re­sources for the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land.

The THA has been al­lo­cat­ed $2.6 bil­lion from cen­tral gov­ern­ment—less than the re­quest­ed $3.9 bil­lion—and it now aims to save an es­ti­mat­ed $292 mil­lion by re­strict­ing ex­pen­di­tures to 2023 lev­els across all di­vi­sions.

In ad­di­tion to trim­ming over­seas trav­el, Roberts out­lined oth­er bud­get-tight­en­ing ac­tions, such as re­duc­ing ex­pens­es on mi­nor equip­ment, pro­mo­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties, of­fice sup­plies, and ma­te­ri­als. Through these mea­sures, she said, the THA could max­imise economies of scale and ne­go­ti­ate bet­ter terms with sup­pli­ers, hop­ing to make each dol­lar stretch fur­ther.

The THA al­so list­ed 44 projects planned in 2025 to de­vel­op To­ba­go and its econ­o­my.

These in­clude a pro­gramme to help small busi­ness­es with loans, new GPS track­ing for fish­ing boats to pre­vent them from go­ing miss­ing, and restor­ing the Fort King George light­house for tourism. Oth­er projects fo­cus on food, such as mega farm­ing ar­eas to in­crease lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and new sports and ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ties like the Char­lot­teville Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty and the Cour­land Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre. 

But Duke said these projects were not what To­ba­go need­ed right now to im­prove the lives of those on the is­land.

He al­so ques­tioned why talk for ma­jor de­vel­op­ment was hap­pen­ing months be­fore their terms ex­pired. 

“They had three years in which to do it or to start; they did not start. They just have a few months, now they are say­ing all of To­ba­go will feel pain be­cause they have to make progress with these 44 projects.”

And while he agreed that some of the projects were need­ed, he said it was laugh­able that the THA had list­ed items such as bench­es and vend­ing booths as pri­or­i­ties.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance, Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, al­so won­dered why it took three years for the THA to de­cide to re­strict ex­pen­di­ture.

She told Guardian Me­dia, “Af­ter three years of To­bag­o­ni­ans com­plain­ing of their ex­cess trav­el, they now re­alised they have to cut back on trav­el. Af­ter three years of a crashed econ­o­my and To­bag­o­ni­ans suf­fer­ing, you now re­alised you have to talk to the To­ba­go con­trac­tors. It re­al­ly has con­firmed the lev­el of in­com­pe­tence and ig­no­rance of this cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said if the Au­gus­tine-led THA ad­min­is­tra­tion had tak­en the ad­vice of To­ba­go’s econ­o­mists, an­a­lysts and tech­nocrats with­in the as­sem­bly, the nec­es­sary cuts for de­vel­op­ment would have hap­pened soon­er.