JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Tobago stakeholders hope $134M will be spent wisely; advise THA

‘Pay off your bills’

by

22 days ago
20250621

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go stake­hold­ers say the $134 mil­lion boost from the mid-year bud­get will not help un­less the mon­ey is spent fair­ly and prop­er­ly. They warn the is­land’s econ­o­my is strug­gling and with­out re­al ac­tion and trans­paren­cy, To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to fall be­hind.

While they wel­come the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, most of the is­land’s stake­hold­ers say more mon­ey is need­ed be­cause the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly owes a lot of peo­ple.

To­ba­go is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive $134 mil­lion more for the THA, in­clud­ing $32 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary mid-year bud­get al­lo­ca­tion and $102 mil­lion in loan fund­ing from the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (CAF).

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said the loan will be used for coastal pro­tec­tion work. In ad­di­tion, the min­is­ter hint­ed that Gov­ern­ment min­istries and state agen­cies are ex­pect­ed to spend an­oth­er $621 mil­lion on the is­land in the com­ing fis­cal year.

Com­ment­ing on the al­lo­ca­tion, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce chair­man Cur­tis Williams said they wel­comed the fund­ing, al­though some of it was in the form of a loan.

“We wel­come the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing. Yes, I know it’s com­ing via a loan, but we still wel­come it be­cause it re­al­ly can go in­to a re­al need.”

He hopes some of the mon­ey will help pay off long-stand­ing debts.

“Those long-last­ing bills might not be paid off im­me­di­ate­ly, but I know some­thing may go to­wards that. And then those out­stand­ing ser­vice providers and sup­pli­ers, they def­i­nite­ly will get some­thing,” Williams said.

How­ev­er, the cham­ber’s for­mer chair, Di­ane Hadad, says To­ba­go keeps ask­ing for more mon­ey but has lit­tle to show for what it al­ready re­ceived.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew on Wednes­day she said, “Far­ley Au­gus­tine has had the lead­er­ship role of the is­land for the last three and a half years… As an is­land, we have not seen any eco­nom­ic stim­u­la­tion.”

She ques­tioned where the mon­ey went, say­ing, “Is it that it is in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, and we just hired a lot of peo­ple? We sure­ly not see­ing it in To­ba­go. We are not see­ing it or feel­ing it.”

Hadad said the econ­o­my has re­mained flat and there has been very lit­tle de­vel­op­ment.

Mean­while, To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber head Mar­tin George said the out­look re­port by the min­is­ter shows the coun­try is in cri­sis, and the Gov­ern­ment must show how it plans to fix the sit­u­a­tion.

“As part of the Gov­ern­ment’s pack­age for the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view and our eco­nom­ic pro­jec­tions go­ing for­ward, it would be good for us to see some sort of eco­nom­ic roadmap to­wards a sus­tained fis­cal re­cov­ery for Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­cause the re­al­i­ty is that as a na­tion, we are not in a good place.”

He be­lieves the forex cri­sis is hurt­ing every­one and again sug­gest­ed a re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act as a so­lu­tion.

“One of the most burn­ing is­sues, of course, is the forex cri­sis, which I think im­pacts all busi­nessper­sons and or­di­nary cit­i­zens... We of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber have said on more than one oc­ca­sion that a sim­ple and im­me­di­ate strat­e­gy to try to ease that would be to try to in­crease the flow of di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment in­to To­ba­go. And to do so, you must im­me­di­ate­ly re­peal that For­eign In­vest­ment Act,” he said.

George said with­out that change, To­ba­go would re­main stuck while oth­er is­lands move ahead.

“We are ac­tu­al­ly the laugh­ing­stock of the Caribbean be­cause of our for­eign ex­change rules, and yet still you have this dele­te­ri­ous leg­is­la­tion hang­ing around... If we re­peal that leg­is­la­tion... then you will see all the trick­le down and all the flows in­to the Trinidad econ­o­my al­so.”

To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas said he was shocked by the mid-year re­view.

“I am to­tal­ly sur­prised. I am shocked, but yet still I’m so dis­ap­point­ed. I’m very much dis­ap­point­ed in the mid-year re­view, es­pe­cial­ly for To­ba­go. It’s more than in­sult­ing in my book.”

Dou­glas said it’s been over a year since the oil spill, and con­trac­tors who re­spond­ed are still wait­ing to be paid.

He hoped the new fund­ing would help clear those debts.

“I hope that good sense would pre­vail and they would pay off the con­trac­tors that would have worked se­ri­ous­ly dur­ing the oil spill. Prefer­ably AT­FA and oth­er con­trac­tors... so that they could be paid off com­plete­ly.”

He al­so called for more trans­paren­cy in how the THA us­es mon­ey.

“Tax­pay­ers need to know where their mon­ey goes and how it has been spent... I would like to see more trans­paren­cy in that mon­ey be­ing al­lo­cat­ed and spent.”

On the oth­er hand, TTUTA To­ba­go of­fi­cer Bran­don Roberts wel­comed the ex­tra fund­ing but raised con­cerns about how it would be man­aged.

“It’s al­ways good news to know that more al­lo­ca­tions are com­ing to To­ba­go. How­ev­er, it’s not just giv­ing more mon­ey... is there the man­age­ment of it? And I have al­ways asked for the THA to be a lit­tle bit more trans­par­ent.”

Roberts said the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion still owes a lot of peo­ple.

“There are a lot of out­stand­ing bills. They owe a lot of peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly when the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion is con­cerned... not just teach­ers that they owe, they owe oth­er sec­tors that are aligned with the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion.”

He said if the THA is se­ri­ous, it must fight for a prop­er bud­get.

“We need to ask for the max­i­mum, as the THA owes a lot of peo­ple... We have our con­tract teach­ers that are owed $10 plus mil­lion.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine could not be reached for com­ment.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored