The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) passed a mo­tion to seek le­gal re­dress for the il­le­gal han­dling of the is­land’s fi­nances and to make a com­plaint to the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mit­tee (DSR) over its year­ly bud­get al­lo­ca­tion.

The mo­tion was brought by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day dur­ing a THA ple­nary sit­ting to de­bate the repri­ori­ti­sa­tion of the $2.585 bil­lion for fis­cal 2024 at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture Cham­ber.

The al­lo­ca­tion re­flects 4.35 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get and falls be­low the rec­om­mend­ed range of 4.03-6.9 per cent pro­posed by the DRC in 2001.

Tem­pers flared dur­ing the de­bate as Au­gus­tine made sev­er­al ac­cu­sa­tions against Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, say­ing there was a fi­nan­cial con­spir­a­cy that can cause his ad­min­is­tra­tion to fail in their ef­forts to de­vel­op To­ba­go.

He said there are po­lit­i­cal games be­ing played in To­ba­go, as he has spent al­most two years try­ing to re­solve is­sues sur­round­ing the dis­burse­ment of al­lo­ca­tions and oth­er fi­nan­cial is­sues with the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“The Cab­i­net, es­pe­cial­ly the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, via the Min­istry of Fi­nance, can and does de­lay dis­burse­ments and with­hold funds with­out ap­pro­pri­ate con­sul­ta­tion,” he claimed.

“The cur­rent le­gal con­struct that in­forms and di­rects the THA’s bud­getary process­es de­nies To­ba­go of any re­al and fis­cal bud­getary au­thor­i­ty. The THA bud­get is plagued with un­cer­tain­ty, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to the par­lia­men­tary al­lo­ca­tion and the re­lease of all the ap­proved al­lo­ca­tions from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to the THA.”

He said this has been hap­pen­ing since 2017, and wors­ened af­ter the 2021 THA elec­tion, where the PNM lost 15-1.

He claimed from 2017 to 2023, cen­tral gov­ern­ment had re­fused to re­lease the THA’s en­tire al­lo­ca­tion.

“This il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al con­duct of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment has de­nied To­ba­go’s $166.4 mil­lion of our ap­pro­pri­at­ed par­lia­men­tary al­lo­ca­tion.”

In his break­down, Au­gus­tine said for 2017, To­ba­go is still owed $56.6 mil­lion; $32.9 mil­lion for 2018; $16.3 mil­lion for 2019; $25.2 mil­lion for 2020; $8 mil­lion for 2021 and $12.2 mil­lion for 2022, along with an ad­di­tion­al 15.3 mil­lion for fis­cal 2023.

“The time for fu­tile talk­ing has ex­pired. We are now at an ad­vanced stage for le­gal ac­tion and prepa­ra­tions of the com­plaints to in­voke the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tions Com­mis­sion pro­vid­ed for un­der Sec­tion 56 of the THA Act 40 of 1996.”

Sec­tion 54 of the THA Act al­lows the DRC to in­ter­vene to re­solve dis­putes be­tween the THA and cen­tral gov­ern­ment on bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions to the as­sem­bly and re­lat­ed mat­ters.

“The on­ly rul­ing of the DRC was giv­en in 2002, some 22 years ago. It was nev­er in­tend­ed to last for­ev­er and so much has changed since this rul­ing; pop­u­la­tion size, To­ba­go eco­nom­ic con­di­tions among oth­ers,” he said.

He said as stat­ed in the Act, the Par­lia­ment must give con­sid­er­a­tion to the de­vel­op­ing needs of To­ba­go.

Fur­ther­more, Au­gus­tine called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to clear all monies owed to To­ba­go by the mid-year re­view.

“I am mak­ing a pub­lic call to the Prime Min­is­ter to send To­ba­go mon­ey to To­ba­go please. Af­ter all, he, like all oth­er To­bag­o­ni­ans, know and ap­pre­ci­ate and do not like to have monies sleep­ing out­side.”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day, while Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Bri­an Man­ning, told Guardian Me­dia he had no com­ment at the time.