Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go's two Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment have pledged to work with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment to ad­vance the is­land's de­vel­op­ment agen­da, de­spite con­cerns over a re­duc­tion in To­ba­go's di­rect al­lo­ca­tion un­der the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get.

Speak­ing dur­ing Sat­ur­day night's bud­get de­bate, To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son and To­ba­go East MP David Thomas, both of the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty (TPP), de­fend­ed their de­ci­sion to work close­ly with the Gov­ern­ment, ar­gu­ing that dis­agree­ments over fund­ing should not stand in the way of se­cur­ing re­sults for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Samp­son said sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment did not mean ac­cept­ing every de­ci­sion un­ques­tion­ing­ly, nor did rais­ing con­cerns amount to dis­loy­al­ty.

"That, Mr Speak­er, is the dif­fer­ence be­tween po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty and po­lit­i­cal servi­tude," he said.

He ac­knowl­edged con­cerns raised by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine over the is­land's al­lo­ca­tion, not­ing that To­ba­go's share had fall­en to 4.35 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get af­ter reach­ing a his­toric high in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year.

The pro­posed di­rect al­lo­ca­tion to the THA for fis­cal 2027 is ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.756 bil­lion, down from $2.96 bil­lion in 2026.

Samp­son said the con­cerns were jus­ti­fied be­cause the THA must fund roads, schools, health­care ser­vices, so­cial pro­grammes, pub­lic build­ings and crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, while al­so in­vest­ing in tourism, at­tract­ing pri­vate cap­i­tal and di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my.

"We can­not ask To­ba­go to di­ver­si­fy its econ­o­my while fi­nanc­ing it as though its prin­ci­pal func­tion was on­ly to ad­min­is­ter re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture," he said.

He al­so stressed that the THA's di­rect al­lo­ca­tion should not be con­flat­ed with the ad­di­tion­al $716.5 mil­lion ear­marked for To­ba­go projects through cen­tral gov­ern­ment min­istries.

De­spite the fund­ing con­cerns, Samp­son said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment and the THA demon­strat­ed that dif­fer­ences could be re­solved through di­a­logue.

As an ex­am­ple, he ref­er­enced re­cent fund­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA).

Ac­cord­ing to Samp­son, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­vened a meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 14 in­volv­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Au­gus­tine and the THA sec­re­tary with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for health to dis­cuss the is­sue.

He said sub­se­quent dis­cus­sions be­tween the par­ties re­sult­ed in an agree­ment ac­cept­able to both sides.

"I don't sug­gest that a meet­ing by it­self solves a hos­pi­tal's dif­fi­cul­ties. What mat­ters is the ad­e­qua­cy of the arrange­ment and time­ly de­liv­ery of the re­quired re­sources," Samp­son said.

He de­scribed the res­o­lu­tion as ev­i­dence that dis­agree­ments need not un­der­mine the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the THA.

"The Chief Sec­re­tary does not pre­tend that every­thing is sat­is­fac­to­ry. The Prime Min­is­ter does not shut the door. She calls a meet­ing," he said.

"To­ba­go does not have to re­main silent to pre­serve har­mo­ny, and Port of Spain does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly get its way. Dif­fer­ences can be ac­knowl­edged, rep­re­sent­ed and re­solved through en­gage­ment."

Samp­son said To­ba­go's fo­cus was on achiev­ing re­sults rather than fos­ter­ing con­fronta­tion, adding that the is­land need­ed greater op­por­tu­ni­ties to gen­er­ate its own rev­enue and at­tract in­vest­ment.

He called for re­forms to li­cens­ing re­quire­ments gov­ern­ing for­eign own­er­ship of land, ar­gu­ing that the cur­rent frame­work could dis­cour­age in­vest­ment in ho­tels, tourism fa­cil­i­ties and oth­er en­ter­pris­es.

He al­so out­lined THA plans to in­vite ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est for ma­ri­na de­vel­op­ment at Friend­ship Es­tate and to make suit­able state lands avail­able for tourism projects.

Samp­son said To­ba­go must ex­pand eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty be­yond the pub­lic sec­tor by de­vel­op­ing in­dus­tries such as tourism, ma­rine ser­vices and agro-pro­cess­ing.

A stronger pri­vate sec­tor, he ar­gued, would re­duce the is­land's de­pen­dence on cen­tral gov­ern­ment fund­ing while strength­en­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

While main­tain­ing that To­ba­go's dis­ap­point­ment over the re­duc­tion from last year's his­toric five per cent al­lo­ca­tion was jus­ti­fied, Samp­son said he and Thomas re­mained com­mit­ted to rep­re­sent­ing the is­land's in­ter­ests.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that To­ba­go's fu­ture could not de­pend sole­ly on seek­ing ad­di­tion­al gov­ern­ment fund­ing.

In­stead, he said, the is­land must grow its econ­o­my, at­tract in­vest­ment, re­move busi­ness bar­ri­ers, re­spon­si­bly utilise its land as­sets and strength­en pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions. Tourism, he added, re­mains one of To­ba­go's strongest op­por­tu­ni­ties to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change for the wider econ­o­my.

"Our po­si­tion is not that every­thing in this bud­get is wrong, nor that every­thing is right. We will sup­port what ad­vances Trinidad and To­ba­go, chal­lenge what dis­ad­van­tages To­ba­go, and ne­go­ti­ate wher­ev­er ne­go­ti­a­tion can de­liv­er a bet­ter out­come for our peo­ple," Samp­son said.

"That is not dis­loy­al­ty; that is rep­re­sen­ta­tion."

Ear­li­er in the de­bate, Thomas al­so de­fend­ed his co­op­er­a­tive ap­proach, say­ing his pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was to se­cure de­vel­op­ment and ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion for To­ba­go East.

"I don't need to stand in this House and ar­gue whether I am a TPP or a UNC. I would al­ways say that I am a mem­ber of gov­ern­ment, and I would rep­re­sent my peo­ple in the best way pos­si­ble," he said.

Thomas high­light­ed sev­er­al ini­tia­tives in To­ba­go East, in­clud­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of sta­t­ic wa­ter tanks in Bloody Bay, up­grades to wa­ter sup­plies in Rox­bor­ough, Ar­gyle, Belle Gar­den and Glam­or­gan, and the de­liv­ery of a new fire ap­pli­ance.

He al­so point­ed to the open­ing of three po­lice posts, the grant­i­ng of a min­ing and pro­cess­ing li­cence at Stud­ley Park, and plans to com­plete the Scar­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion.

Thank­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Au­gus­tine and Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters for their sup­port, Thomas said he would con­tin­ue work­ing with all stake­hold­ers in the best in­ter­ests of his con­stituents.

He al­so voiced sup­port for the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill, as­sur­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans that the Gov­ern­ment was ad­dress­ing the is­land's needs.

Samp­son con­clud­ed by say­ing To­ba­go was seek­ing not mere­ly a larg­er share of na­tion­al re­sources, but a greater role in ex­pand­ing the coun­try's eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties.

"We are not ask­ing mere­ly for a larg­er share of the na­tion­al pie. We are ask­ing for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to help make a big­ger pie for the en­tire re­pub­lic," he said.

He said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the THA and the na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment of­fered hope that both ad­min­is­tra­tions could work to­geth­er to ad­dress the coun­try's chal­lenges.