THA launches $2.25m electoral district fund

Stephon Nicholas

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has launched a $2.25 mil­lion pro­gramme de­signed to give area rep­re­sen­ta­tives greater re­sources to ad­dress day-to-day chal­lenges in their com­mu­ni­ties.

The Elec­toral Dis­trict Fund, a man­i­festo com­mit­ment first pro­posed by the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), was of­fi­cial­ly launched ear­li­er this week, with $150,000 al­lo­cat­ed to each of To­ba­go's 15 elec­toral dis­tricts. A unit with­in the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and So­cial Pro­tec­tion will man­age the pro­gramme.

Speak­ing at the launch at the di­vi­sion's of­fices in Scar­bor­ough, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he ex­pects the ini­tia­tive to be­come a last­ing lega­cy of his ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"It will not mat­ter who will rep­re­sent your dis­trict there­after. A fund will al­ways be avail­able re­gard­less of which side of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide the area rep­re­sen­ta­tive is from, and that is on­ly fair. At the heart of this, is an un­der­stand­ing that if you are elect­ed then you must now have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide goods and ser­vices to that dis­trict."

Au­gus­tine said the ini­tia­tive pro­motes eq­ui­ty and al­lows area rep­re­sen­ta­tives to take a more ac­tive role in re­solv­ing is­sues af­fect­ing their con­stituents.

The Par­latu­vi­er/L'Anse Four­mi/Spey­side rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the fund had been promised be­fore the close­ly con­test­ed 2021 THA elec­tion.

The PDP won the De­cem­ber 2021 elec­tion 12-3, but in­ter­nal di­vi­sions lat­er led to the for­ma­tion of the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty (TPP). Au­gus­tine said the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture lat­er ap­proved a mo­tion es­tab­lish­ing the fund, while the ad­min­is­tra­tion worked out how it would op­er­ate. The TPP went on to win the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tion 15-0.

Al­though the PDP had orig­i­nal­ly promised $10 mil­lion for each elec­toral dis­trict, Au­gus­tine ac­knowl­edged the scaled-back launch.

"We de­cid­ed we would start this slow and steady. The cam­paign promise in 2021 was a gar­gan­tu­an sum per elec­toral dis­trict. I would not go over those fig­ures," he said with a smile.

He said the fund­ing would help ad­dress every­day needs by sup­port­ing sport­ing groups, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, schools, vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and fish­er­folk.

"This is for tiny, crit­i­cal projects in these ar­eas," he said, adding that re­quests would not be­come bogged down in bu­reau­cra­cy.

As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Ack­el Franklyn said the fund could al­so be used to re­spond to dis­as­ters.

With the fis­cal year end­ing in Sep­tem­ber, Franklyn said the ini­tial al­lo­ca­tion could make a mean­ing­ful im­pact be­fore it is re­newed in the new fis­cal year.

Pro­gramme co-or­di­na­tor Ak­i­lah Kaiser said the fund would com­ple­ment, rather than re­place, ex­ist­ing pro­grammes across THA di­vi­sions.

"We do not in­tend to du­pli­cate or re­place any di­vi­sions. We as­sist where we can or we re­fer or we col­lab­o­rate," she said.

Kaiser said many area rep­re­sen­ta­tives had pre­vi­ous­ly used their own mon­ey to help strug­gling con­stituents, but the new pro­gramme would re­move that bur­den.

"They can come to the re­spec­tive dis­trict of­fices, iden­ti­fy their needs and con­cerns and the process be­gins from there."

Dis­trict of­fice man­agers Kellyanne Frank of Ply­mouth/Black Rock and David Smith of Mt St George/Good­wood wel­comed the ini­tia­tive.

Smith said his of­fice reg­u­lar­ly re­ceives re­quests from vul­ner­a­ble res­i­dents and be­lieves the fund will al­low as­sis­tance to reach them much faster.

"They will get help in re­al time," he said, pre­dict­ing sup­port could be de­liv­ered in less than two weeks.