Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has called out THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine on the fact that the $32 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing the is­land will re­ceive is much less than the THA re­ceived in pre­vi­ous years from the past Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther­more, he says the $102 mil­lion loan which the Gov­ern­ment is fi­nal­is­ing from the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (CAF) will on­ly sad­dle the THA with debt. “It’s no ‘gift’,” Mor­ris de­clared.

Mor­ris made the com­ment af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo an­nounced the ad­di­tion­al $32 mil­lion in fund­ing and the CAF loan arrange­ment for To­ba­go while de­liv­er­ing the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view dur­ing Wednes­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting at the Red House, Port-of-Spain.

De­bate per­tained to a to­tal of $3.2 bil­lion in ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to the 2025 Bud­get. To­ba­go was among the 28 di­vi­sions re­ceiv­ing ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris, the THA’s lone as­sem­bly­men in the THA, em­pha­sised that the $32 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing To­ba­go will re­ceive is just one per cent of the over­all ad­just­ment, “or one per cent of every ad­di­tion­al dol­lar ap­proved to be spent na­tion­al­ly.”

“And the loan of (US)$15 or (TT)$102 mil­lion is a sep­a­rate arrange­ment which the THA must re­pay from fu­ture al­lo­ca­tions. This is by no means a gift nor should it be por­trayed as part of Gov­ern­ment sup­port. The loan is sim­ply debt, for To­ba­go and THA—not Gov­ern­ment sup­port,” Mor­ris said.

He point­ed out that the $32 mil­lion is less than the sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing al­lo­ca­tions To­ba­go has re­ceived in mid-year re­views since 2022.

Mor­ris added, “In 2022 un­der the past gov­ern­ment, To­ba­go re­ceived $60 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing in the mid-year re­view, in 2023 To­ba­go got $100 mil­lion and in 2024, To­ba­go re­ceived $50 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary funds.

“And even then, the Chief Sec­re­tary de­scribed that as ‘fis­cal wicked­ness’. I’d like to know from him now how he feels about To­ba­go be­ing al­lo­cat­ed a pal­try $32 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing—much less than what THA got from the PNM gov­ern­ment.

“On top of re­duced sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing, how does he feel about this $102 mil­lion loan the UNC Gov­ern­ment is ne­go­ti­at­ing for To­ba­go on pre­text of it be­ing a ‘gift’—but which will have to be re­paid.”

Tan­coo: Govt will en­sure To­ba­go gets fair share

Dur­ing the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view de­bate, Tan­coo specif­i­cal­ly ad­dressed plans for To­ba­go, say­ing, “I want to ad­dress some mis­in­for­ma­tion that the To­ba­go PNM are shar­ing. I have to say the ‘To­ba­go PNM’ be­cause right now, the PNM’s split in­to many ad­ver­sar­i­al fac­tions, with many lead­ers. Even in this House, I’m un­sure who’s lead­ing and who’s fol­low­ing on their bench.”

He said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) wasn’t “... vin­dic­tive to the peo­ple of To­ba­go like those op­po­site.”

“This Gov­ern­ment, led by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is a Gov­ern­ment for all T&T. Un­like the PNM, we’ve open­ly ex­pressed a de­sire to work with our broth­ers and sis­ters in To­ba­go and to en­sure To­ba­go gets a fair share of the na­tion­al pie.”

Tan­coo added, “For fis­cal 2025, the then-min­is­ter of fi­nance promised the THA $2.6 bil­lion. This al­lo­ca­tion left the THA with very lit­tle for de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes on the is­land.

“I’m proud to an­nounce that the THA will re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al $134 mil­lion un­der this Gov­ern­ment, led by this Prime Min­is­ter and $32 mil­lion of this will be al­lo­cat­ed via the Sup­ple­men­tary Ex­pen­di­ture.

“In ad­di­tion, (on Tues­day) I met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of CAF, the Caribbean Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca, and I’m proud to an­nounce that this Gov­ern­ment is fi­nal­is­ing arrange­ments for the sign­ing of a US$15 mil­lion (TT$102 mil­lion) loan from CAF to un­der­take sev­er­al coastal pro­tec­tion projects across To­ba­go. I’m ad­vised these projects were iden­ti­fied as crit­i­cal for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

Tan­coo said the loan was ne­go­ti­at­ed, “but for more than a year, the PNM fi­nance min­is­ter re­fused to sign the agree­ment! Pure vin­dic­tive­ness and wicked­ness to­wards To­bag­o­ni­ans!”

He said the Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed him “to re­move the stum­bling blocks and work with CAF and the THA to start this work.”

He con­tin­ued, “In ad­di­tion, every min­istry and state agency spend­ing mon­ey in To­ba­go on projects and pro­grammes will be re­quired to li­aise di­rect­ly with the Chief Sec­re­tary, the two To­ba­go MPs and the THA ad­min­is­tra­tion to fi­nalise ex­pen­di­tures for fis­cal 2025. That would ac­count for an ad­di­tion­al $621 mil­lion from Oc­to­ber 2024 to Sep­tem­ber 2025.

“For Bud­get 2026/27 and go­ing for­ward, this Gov­ern­ment in­tends to li­aise with the To­ba­go MPs and the THA in To­ba­go to en­sure that the elect­ed of­fi­cials of To­ba­go, the MPs and the THA, have a di­rect say in ex­pen­di­ture be­ing un­der­tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”