Farley: THA to freeze hirings in future

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) will need to freeze hir­ings in the fu­ture.

Dur­ing to­day’s bud­get de­bate at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture, Scar­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said the is­land’s re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture is too high.

On Mon­day, Fi­nance Sec­re­tary an­nounced a $4.12 bil­lion bud­get re­quest for fis­cal 2027 with $3.03 bil­lion in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture. Au­gus­tine said the lat­ter fig­ure con­strains the as­sem­bly’s plans and does not al­low for sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment.

He said, “There will come a point, Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my, where I will have to is­sue an edict freez­ing em­ploy­ment in the THA be­cause we can’t just keep go­ing.” He said from Jan­u­ary 2022 to Jan­u­ary 2026, the THA hired 3,146 new em­ploy­ees.

Au­gus­tine al­so in­formed “ten-on, ten-off” con­tract work­ers in the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture there would be some changes as the THA seeks to fill per­ma­nent po­si­tions.

“Don’t be alarmed for those who are on short term and it is not in this count as yet — those who are on ten on, ten off. We ex­tend­ed your pro­gramme to the end of Au­gust be­cause we did not want any dis­rup­tions be­fore you pre­pare your chil­dren to re­turn to school.”

He said the di­vi­sion is in con­sul­ta­tion with the unions and will pro­mote work­ers al­ready in the es­tab­lish­ment and then make the base po­si­tions avail­able for en­try.

“Once we close those gaps we would have to put a pause on hir­ings for a num­ber of years in the THA, to al­low us to catch a break.”

The THA ac­counts for over 60 per cent of the is­land’s work­force.