Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Sev­er­al To­bag­o­ni­ans be­lieve the 2026 Bud­get could ease fi­nan­cial strain, but many re­main cau­tious about whether the promis­es will tru­ly reach the peo­ple.

Res­i­dents yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia the pro­posed ten per cent salary in­crease, new pen­sion sup­port and the record $3.72 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) are rea­sons for guard­ed op­ti­mism. Still, they said past ex­pe­ri­ences have taught them to wait and see.

Joseph Rob­ley, of Good­wood, said he will hold his judge­ment.

“When I see every­thing that they say is im­ple­ment­ed, then I will make my com­ments. Peo­ple usu­al­ly say they’re go­ing to do this and do that, and when the time comes, noth­ing,” he said.

“I do hope they put the peo­ple in a po­si­tion to make good use of it. As al­ways, we will stand up, wait, and watch them. Me? I wait­ing to see the ben­e­fits to pen­sion­ers.”

Pen­sion­er Ver­na East­man de­scribed the Bud­get as one that “reach­es out to the poor.”

“I find the Bud­get reach­es out to the poor in our so­ci­ety. It re­al­ly has a place for every­body re­gard­less of their sta­tus,” she said.

“And I recog­nise that the Prime Min­is­ter spoke about ten per cent, and it seems as though she re­al­ly lived up to that ex­pec­ta­tion. I be­lieve that’s why plen­ty pub­lic ser­vants like my­self vot­ed for her—be­cause we want­ed the mon­ey.”

East­man said the tone of the PM and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo re­vealed a more com­pas­sion­ate side of lead­er­ship.

“It helped me to see a dif­fer­ent side of my Prime Min­is­ter—a car­ing side. That’s a big plus,” she said.

“So, with the next elec­tion, she’ll get in triple time what she got in terms of vot­ing.”

How­ev­er, not every­one shared the same en­thu­si­asm.

Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Kri­son Man­swell said he was dis­ap­point­ed that sports re­ceived lit­tle at­ten­tion.

“I’m a sports­man, and they said noth­ing about sports. The last thing this coun­try had to smile for was from sports, and I didn’t hear enough. For me, that’s not a good bud­get,” he said.

Spey­side’s Jessle Duke praised the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the THA and Gov­ern­ment but urged both to fol­low through on their com­mit­ments.

“All I want is my ten per cent. That’s all I con­cerned about. The words were com­fort­ing, but a promise is a com­fort to a fool. Let us be re­al now. My salary is still the same way. They com­fort­ed us with words—it’s time to see things ma­te­ri­alise,”
he said.

added that To­ba­go fi­nal­ly re­ceived what it had been ask­ing for.
“For the first time, we re­al­ly get what we ask for. We’re sup­posed to say thanks to the Gov­ern­ment for lis­ten­ing to To­ba­go and putting our needs and pri­or­i­ties first,” he said.
“But like we al­ways say, don’t just tell us you love us—show us that you love us.”
For now, many To­bag­o­ni­ans say they will con­tin­ue to wait and watch—hope­ful that this year’s promis­es will trans­late in­to tan­gi­ble re­lief across the is­land.