STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) will dis­burse more than $600,000 in back­pay to par­ents un­der its new ba­by grant pro­gramme.

The ini­tia­tive was rolled out on Tues­day, pro­vid­ing par­ents with $500 month­ly un­til their child turns five.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine re­vealed that the grant would be retroac­tive to Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion Dr Faith Breb­nor con­firmed the dis­burse­ment of the retroac­tive pay­ments yes­ter­day, not­ing that the fa­cil­i­ty can on­ly be ac­cessed by To­bag­o­ni­ans who re­side on the is­land.

“It is ac­tu­al­ly called the To­ba­go Ba­by Grant. It was a promise of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty ad­min­is­tra­tion in the last Jan­u­ary THA elec­tions,” she said.

She said ap­pli­cants must ap­ply on­line through the new To­ba­go ID plat­form, with pay­ments made di­rect­ly in­to par­ents’ bank ac­counts. Ap­pli­cants must al­so up­load the child’s birth cer­tifi­cate.

Breb­nor said To­ba­go av­er­ages ap­prox­i­mate­ly 35 births per month, down sig­nif­i­cant­ly from a high of 83 sev­er­al years ago.

Be­yond pro­vid­ing an in­cen­tive to boost the is­land’s de­clin­ing birth rate, Breb­nor said the grant would help fam­i­lies ac­quire es­sen­tial items to care for their chil­dren.

How­ev­er, In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader Tsoiafatt An­gus ques­tioned the mo­tive of the THA, not­ing that $500 would not con­vince peo­ple to have chil­dren.

“Any so­lu­tion in a pol­i­cy has to make sense, and a clear as­sess­ment of what it takes to have a child is what needs to be hap­pen­ing. When you look at the cost of hav­ing chil­dren, I don’t know if $500 is enough for any­one bring­ing an ad­di­tion­al child in the house­hold, es­pe­cial­ly when the econ­o­my is in a nose­dive and per­sons are be­ing laid off left, right and cen­tre.”

She said if the fa­cil­i­ty was sim­ply in­tend­ed to help strug­gling par­ents pro­vide a bet­ter lev­el of care, it would make more sense.

“You may hit the mark with that, but in terms of dri­ving per­sons as an in­cen­tive, I would be very cau­tious about go­ing and pop­u­late with just the $500, know­ing how many oth­er things that are af­fect­ed in the mean­time,” she said.

The for­mer THA pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer said there need­ed to be more sup­port for par­ents with spe­cial needs and oth­er chal­lenges.

“It can­not just be $500, we need to hear the whole plan.”

The IDA head said de­clin­ing birth rates were not unique to To­ba­go, not­ing that fi­nances were just one fac­tor.

She said many young women de­lay hav­ing chil­dren to fur­ther their pro­fes­sion­al ca­reers.

An­gus al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the To­ba­go ID on­line plat­form, spec­u­lat­ing that the ID could fur­ther di­vide Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, how do we de­fine a To­bag­on­ian? Do we have the au­thor­i­ty un­der the THA Act to for­mal­ly bring this for­ward and de­cide who is a To­bag­on­ian?”