Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) may soon be­gin de­clin­ing all job ap­pli­ca­tions.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s bud­get de­bate for fis­cal 2027 at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture in Scar­bor­ough, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced plans to even­tu­al­ly freeze all hir­ing, cit­ing the un­sus­tain­able cost of re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.

Au­gus­tine said the THA’s wage bill was se­vere­ly con­strain­ing its de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts re­vealed a $4.12 bil­lion re­quest to cen­tral gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, more than 73 per cent of that fig­ure—$3.03 bil­lion—is al­lo­cat­ed to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.

Au­gus­tine said that, con­trary to claims by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the as­sem­bly’s pay­roll had ex­pand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) term in of­fice. He said that from Jan­u­ary 2022 to May 2026, the THA hired 3,146 em­ploy­ees, adding to an al­ready sub­stan­tial wage bill.

He said it was im­por­tant to build the tourism, agri­cul­ture, and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors to ab­sorb seg­ments of the labour force. He not­ed that the THA has al­ready re­leased $10 mil­lion for the air­port ter­mi­nal build­out, al­lo­cat­ed funds for up­grades to Store Bay and Pi­geon Point, and shift­ed CEPEP work­ers in­to agri­cul­ture.

Au­gus­tine said the THA cur­rent­ly em­ploys more than 60 per cent of the is­land’s work­force, a fig­ure he de­scribed as un­sus­tain­able.

“There will come a point, Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my, where I will have to is­sue an edict freez­ing em­ploy­ment in the THA be­cause we can’t just keep go­ing,” he said.

He al­so ad­dressed “ten-on, ten-off” con­tract work­ers in the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, say­ing changes would be made as the THA moves to fill per­ma­nent po­si­tions.

“Don’t be alarmed for those who are on short-term arrange­ments and are not yet in this count—those who are on ten-on, ten-off. We ex­tend­ed your pro­gramme to the end of Au­gust be­cause we did not want any dis­rup­tions be­fore you pre­pare your chil­dren to re­turn to school,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said the di­vi­sion is in con­sul­ta­tion with unions and will pro­mote work­ers al­ready in the es­tab­lish­ment be­fore open­ing base po­si­tions to new ap­pli­cants. He added that va­can­cies in oth­er di­vi­sions al­so need to be filled.

“Once we close those gaps, we would have to put a pause on hir­ing for a num­ber of years in the THA, to al­low us to catch a break,” he said.

He added that in­creased bud­get al­lo­ca­tions should help the THA in­vest in in­fra­struc­ture such as bridges, schools, and oth­er cap­i­tal projects, rather than be­ing ab­sorbed by wages.

PNM: TPP ‘fooled the peo­ple’

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis crit­i­cised Au­gus­tine’s pro­pos­al, say­ing the THA is out of ideas and ac­cus­ing the TPP of sidelin­ing young pro­fes­sion­als af­ter “hir­ing their friends” over the past four years.

“True fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is about in­no­va­tion. It is not so much about aus­ter­i­ty,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis said such a mea­sure would not have been nec­es­sary had Au­gus­tine and his ad­min­is­tra­tion sup­port­ed ear­li­er PNM projects.

“Here we are four and a half years lat­er, and they have not come up with any­thing to re­place the San­dals project they pushed away and oth­er ma­jor ini­tia­tives,” she said.

“They of­fered the peo­ple of To­ba­go ten-on, ten-off and short-term con­tracts, so now there is no mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment. Our pri­vate sec­tor has not ex­pand­ed, and we are still de­pend­ing very heav­i­ly on the THA to move the econ­o­my.”

She said the PNM had warned To­bag­o­ni­ans about the TPP’s ap­proach ahead of the THA elec­tions.

“We can’t promise bet­ter than the TPP; we can’t lie bet­ter than the TPP ei­ther. They won us on emp­ty promis­es,” she said.

She al­so called on the THA to be trans­par­ent about the fu­ture of ten-on, ten-off work­ers.

“What hap­pens af­ter Au­gust?” she asked.

Cham­ber: Labour mar­ket study need­ed

Chair­man of the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, said the pri­vate sec­tor is still far from fill­ing the em­ploy­ment gap. How­ev­er, he not­ed that with the air­port ter­mi­nal near­ing com­ple­tion and con­struc­tion of the Mar­riott ho­tel ex­pect­ed to be­gin lat­er this year, there is “light at the end of the tun­nel.”

He called for a labour mar­ket sur­vey to guide work­force plan­ning and bet­ter align ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing with in­dus­try needs.

“Right now, we are try­ing to de­ter­mine what the labour mar­ket looks like in To­ba­go—what skills we have and what skills we don’t have—so we can ad­vise the THA, es­pe­cial­ly stu­dents on schol­ar­ships, to fo­cus on rel­e­vant skillsets in­stead of pro­duc­ing grad­u­ates in ar­eas we can­not ful­ly ab­sorb,” he said.

Williams urged greater par­tic­i­pa­tion in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor, de­scrib­ing it as of­fer­ing stronger long-term ben­e­fits than tra­di­tion­al em­ploy­ment.

He said he is look­ing for­ward to an end to what he de­scribed as “morn­ing wuk” and the de­vel­op­ment of a stronger pri­vate sec­tor.

He al­so said the THA should avoid di­rect in­volve­ment in busi­ness ven­tures and leave those projects to en­tre­pre­neurs.

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said he was con­fused by Au­gus­tine’s com­ments.

“The (fi­nance) sec­re­tary gave the im­pres­sion that things are go­ing swim­ming­ly in To­ba­go and that sig­nif­i­cant progress is be­ing made un­der Far­ley. Now we are hear­ing that things are not go­ing swim­ming­ly af­ter all and that we need to put the brakes on,” he said.

James said the THA’s dom­i­nance of the labour mar­ket is a long-stand­ing is­sue, with suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions re­luc­tant to re­duce pub­lic em­ploy­ment due to po­lit­i­cal back­lash.

He said he does not sup­port a hir­ing freeze, in­stead rec­om­mend­ing poli­cies to strength­en the pri­vate sec­tor and di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

He added that re­cent de­vel­op­ments in man­u­fac­tur­ing should be stud­ied for repli­ca­tion in oth­er sec­tors.

James al­so warned that if ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems are not re­formed to adapt to ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, the coun­try risks be­com­ing a “knowl­edge back­wa­ter” with­in 20 years.