GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme in­cludes sev­er­al new ini­tia­tives, among them the es­tab­lish­ment of a Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit, a Dis­as­ter Re­lief Fund for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), and the cre­ation of a steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

How­ev­er, a re­view of the Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme for Min­istries and Di­vi­sions — one of the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments for the 2026 Bud­get pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo on Mon­day — shows a no­table pat­tern: Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions large­ly re­ceived re­duced de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tions for 2026, while Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions were giv­en in­creas­es in both de­vel­op­ment and over­all fund­ing.

The In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund — through which many gov­ern­ment projects are ex­e­cut­ed — was al­lo­cat­ed $1.403 bil­lion, while the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund re­ceived $2.696 bil­lion for 2026.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has been al­lo­cat­ed $20.5 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment fund­ing. With­in that amount are new items such as:

$600,000 for a Dis­as­ter Re­lief Fund

$1 mil­lion for a To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Fund

$400,000 for the Scar­bor­ough Re­de­vel­op­ment Project

$3.5 mil­lion for out­fit­ting the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in To­ba­go

The new Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry has been al­lo­cat­ed $66.35 mil­lion, while the new­ly es­tab­lished De­fence Min­istry re­ceives $154.97 mil­lion.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tion in­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly — from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $104 mil­lion in 2025 to $126.3 mil­lion in 2026.

The es­ti­mates show that PNM-con­trolled re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions — ex­cept for San Juan/Laven­tille — re­ceived re­duced de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tions com­pared to 2025, when the PNM was in of­fice.

In con­trast, the sev­en UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions all re­ceived in­creas­es, with the largest boosts go­ing to Ch­agua­nas, Pe­nal–Debe, and Princes Town, each jump­ing from about $17 mil­lion in 2025 to be­tween $37 mil­lion and $38 mil­lion in 2026.

New and no­table projects

Among new ini­tia­tives for 2026 are:

$2.5 mil­lion for es­tab­lish­ing a Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit

$2 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ing a steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor

$1 mil­lion to re­ac­ti­vate the teach­ing of Span­ish in pri­ma­ry schools

$50,000 for a dog-catch­ing unit

$1 mil­lion for im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Dog Con­trol Act (2013) and Dog Con­trol (Amend­ment) Act (2014)

$30 mil­lion for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ments and hous­ing units

$1 mil­lion to com­mem­o­rate the 50th an­niver­sary of the Pres­i­den­cy and the 150th an­niver­sary of Pres­i­dent’s House

Oth­er al­lo­ca­tions

$3 mil­lion for the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion to up­grade elec­tron­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and elec­tion man­age­ment sys­tems

$48 mil­lion for ac­qui­si­tion of build­ings for Gov­ern­ment ac­com­mo­da­tion

$4 mil­lion for ren­o­va­tions of Gov­ern­ment build­ings in south Trinidad for use as shel­ters at Re­form, Tyler Lane, Ste. Madeleine, Sibran Dri­ve, and Gas­par­il­lo

$2.266 mil­lion for re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of den­tal ser­vices

$3 mil­lion for new ve­hi­cles for the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion

$1 mil­lion for bed­side reg­is­tra­tion of new­borns

Host­ing of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) con­fer­ence in T&T in 2026

$1 mil­lion for beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and plant­i­ng of poui trees along ma­jor high­ways

$2 mil­lion for es­tab­lish­ing an Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Board and Coun­cil for Com­pet­i­tive­ness and In­no­va­tion

Prepa­ra­tion of a Mas­ter Space Plan for all ex­ist­ing and pro­posed PTSC fa­cil­i­ties

Fund­ing for Ju­nior Achieve­ment 2026–2028

$827,000 for a Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Sur­vey

$2 mil­lion for up­grades to Queen’s Hall

Mean­while, no funds were al­lo­cat­ed in 2026 for im­ple­men­ta­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form, an item which had re­ceived fund­ing in 2025.