Farley ‘gutted’ by Tobago budget allocation

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has reg­is­tered strong dis­agree­ment with the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion grant­ed to the is­land in the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get, say­ing he felt “gut­ted” by cuts to cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment and a re­duc­tion in To­ba­go’s over­all per­cent­age of the na­tion­al purse.

Ad­dress­ing mem­bers of the me­dia at the Red House in Port-of-Spain short­ly af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pre­sent­ed the bud­get, Au­gus­tine re­vealed that the di­rect al­lo­ca­tion to the THA had de­clined from TT$2.9 bil­lion in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year to just over TT$2.7 bil­lion for fis­cal 2027.

Fore­most among his ob­jec­tions was the steep de­cline in de­vel­op­ment fund­ing, which he stressed is es­sen­tial to trans­form­ing the is­land's in­fra­struc­ture and di­ver­si­fy­ing its econ­o­my.

The cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tion was cut from TT$201 mil­lion last year to ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$150 mil­lion.

“I have con­sis­tent­ly, over the years... spo­ken about the fact that I feel To­ba­go needs to be giv­en more on the cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment side,” Au­gus­tine said.

“Cer­tain­ly af­ter the hope­ful start of last year, it feels gut­ted to be re­duced to what we are ac­cus­tomed get­ting in pre­vi­ous years.”

Ad­dress­ing the al­lo­ca­tion in pro­por­tion­al terms, Au­gus­tine point­ed out that To­ba­go re­ceived 4.35 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get for 2027, down from the 5.0 per cent al­lo­cat­ed in the pri­or fis­cal pack­age.

He ar­gued that with To­ba­go ac­count­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5.1 per cent of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion, the is­land’s statu­to­ry al­lo­ca­tion base­line should nev­er dip be­low the 5 per cent thresh­old.

Us­ing a do­mes­tic anal­o­gy to char­ac­terise his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s stance to­ward the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, Au­gus­tine re­marked that dif­fer­ences of opin­ion be­tween lead­ers are nat­ur­al.

“In a house­hold, hus­band and wife do some­times have dis­agree­ments... it doesn't mean an au­to­mat­ic di­vorce,” Au­gus­tine stat­ed.

While main­tain­ing that the THA’s work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion re­mains far more re­spect­ful, pro­duc­tive, and pro­gres­sive than un­der the pre­vi­ous four years, he in­sist­ed that THA rep­re­sen­ta­tives would not silent­ly ac­cept short­falls.

He gave no­tice that To­ba­go’s Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment will vig­or­ous­ly lob­by dur­ing the bud­get de­bate for im­proved fis­cal treat­ment for the is­land.

Au­gus­tine un­der­scored that long-term eq­ui­ty can­not de­pend on an­nu­al min­is­te­r­i­al dis­cre­tion, call­ing in­stead for en­trenched con­sti­tu­tion­al au­ton­o­my. He not­ed that a true "fair share" arrange­ment re­quires con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form that en­shrines an ob­jec­tive math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­la - an "al­go­rithm" - to de­ter­mine To­ba­go's share of na­tion­al rev­enue. He an­nounced that fol­low­ing in­ter­nal stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions, the THA will pub­licly roll out its au­ton­o­my ini­tia­tive in late No­vem­ber, ahead of To­ba­go Day on De­cem­ber 4, seek­ing bi­par­ti­san con­sen­sus across the gov­ern­ment, op­po­si­tion, and in­de­pen­dent bench­es.

In the same vein, Au­gus­tine high­light­ed the coun­try's en­er­gy prospects, not­ing that much of the fu­ture hy­dro­car­bon drilling and ex­pan­sion cel­e­brat­ed in the bud­get will take place with­in To­ba­go’s mar­itime wa­ters. He in­sist­ed that To­ba­go must re­ceive a com­men­su­rate and eq­ui­table re­turn from the rev­enues gen­er­at­ed in its mar­itime space.

Turn­ing to eco­nom­ic re­struc­tur­ing, Au­gus­tine re­it­er­at­ed that To­ba­go's over­whelm­ing re­liance on the THA and gov­ern­ment spend­ing - which rep­re­sents the largest con­trib­u­tor to the is­land’s GDP - is un­sus­tain­able. To shift the eco­nom­ic en­gine to­ward pri­vate en­ter­prise, he called for the im­me­di­ate abo­li­tion of the is­land's re­stric­tive land li­cens­ing regime un­der the For­eign In­vest­ment Act, ar­gu­ing that 1-to-2-year ap­proval de­lays se­vere­ly sti­fle for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment.

He main­tained that de­vel­op­ment reg­u­la­tion should in­stead be gov­erned strict­ly through the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and lo­cal Town and Coun­try Plan­ning guide­lines set by the THA.

To stim­u­late pri­vate in­vest­ment, Au­gus­tine pre­viewed sev­er­al pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships (PPPs) rolling out in the cur­rent fis­cal year:

A sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny along­side the Prime Min­is­ter for the new Mar­riott Ho­tel.

Ex­pres­sions of In­ter­est (EOI) for the con­struc­tion of To­ba­go’s first ma­ri­na, aimed at cap­tur­ing mega-yacht and ma­rine tourism out­side the hur­ri­cane belt.

Com­pre­hen­sive ten­ders for the Scar­bor­ough Re­de­vel­op­ment Pro­gram, in­cor­po­rat­ing a new Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza and a mul­ti-storey car park.

Au­gus­tine al­so moved to quell spec­u­la­tion re­gard­ing CEPEP and URP work­ers, giv­ing the as­sur­ance that tenure and em­ploy­ment will be pro­tect­ed. He ex­plained that URP staff have been suc­cess­ful­ly ab­sorbed in­to the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, while CEPEP work­ers are be­ing tran­si­tioned in­to sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives.

While crit­i­cis­ing the fis­cal pack­age, the Chief Sec­re­tary com­mend­ed the na­tion­al ex­pan­sion of so­cial safe­ty net spend­ing, specif­i­cal­ly in­creased grant fund­ing for the el­der­ly and vul­ner­a­ble.

He added that sev­er­al ma­jor joint projects are un­der­way, in­clud­ing the open­ing of the new East Ter­mi­nal at the A.N.R. Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the han­dover of three joint po­lice-army posts to the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the com­mis­sion­ing of a new fire ten­der at the Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion, and the ex­pan­sion of min­ing op­er­a­tions at Stud­ley Park En­ter­prise Lim­it­ed (SPEL) fol­low­ing cab­i­net ex­port ap­provals.

The THA will con­vene in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive ses­sions in No­vem­ber to repri­ori­tise its cap­i­tal projects and re­cal­i­brate the is­land's spend­ing based on the ac­tu­al al­lo­ca­tions re­ceived.