ANDREW GIOANNETTI

TOBAGO House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Farley Augustine says his regime and the people of Tobago have every right to question the central government's budget allocation for the island.

Augustine was speaking at a town hall meeting for residents of Buccoo and Mt Pleasant on Tuesday night.

He said there had been some confusion as to why he and other Tobagonians are dissatisfied with the allocation, despite an overall increase.

'The THA gets two sets of money from the budget; two primary sets,' one being for recurrent expenditure and the other for capital development, he explained.

Augustine said current expenditure and allocations would naturally have increased after wage negotiations were settled.

However, he suggested the increase in the THA's recurrent expenditure may have come at the cost of allocations for capital development.

'The increase in the budget came in recurrent expenditure, but that is not surprising, because some unions have accepted wage agreements with the CPO (Chief Personnel Officer), which means some of all you went and take your four per cent (salary increase) and (back pay), which you can now use for capital development in your home.

'(We were) allocated less actually on capital development this year than last year' - a reduction of $300 million last year to $260 million this year for the starting budget, he said.

'(This means) we are starting the fiscal year to pave roads, to build drains, to build retaining walls, to fix schools, hospitals, clinics (etcetera), which means we have to get creative about how we go about our capital development, and in the coming weeks the THA will be prioritising in a way to say to you, the public, 'These are the actual projects we will do with the $260 (million) for the fiscal year.''

On wages, he said Tobago was already 'ahead of the curve' before the recent increase in the hourly minimum wage to $20.50.

He said his party decided in 2022 to increase the wages of Community-based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme and Unemployment Relief Programme workers, 'before the central government saw the need to increase the minimum wage, because we recognise that the cost of living in the country had risen exponentially.'

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