Former Secretary of Finance in the THA Joel Jack is of the view that Tobago now needs to put its development trajectory back on sound footing.
Jack was speaking on the heels of the island $2.585 billion allocation in the 2024 national budget. On Monday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert made the presentation in the House of Representatives. For Tobago, Imbert said $2.298 million has been allocated for recurrent expenditure, $260 million for the development programme and $18 million for the Unemployment Relief Programme. He said the allocation was $64.2 million more than last year's. In June, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) requested $4.54 billion.
Speaking on the Minority Report aired on Tobago Updates Television on Tuesday, Jack said what is happening in the Tobago space is troubling.
“When you compare what is happening nationally to what is happening in Tobago, I think we all have a reason to be concerned and very much so.”
He said he sat in the Parliament during the presentation, and he questioned whether Tobagonians understood where the country was going and what was happening in the Tobago space.
“If they compare objectively the stewardship and governance of this island under the People’s National Movement to what is happening now and what Tobago is missing out on, I dare say it is time to get the island back on track as we have really lost our developmental momentum. Our development trajectory has been impeded and we are off course.”
He said when this year's allocation was compared to the previous budgets under the PNM administrations in Tobago, one had to be concerned as a Tobagonian. He said not just in the context of the allocation, but in the context of governance and the island’s development.
“I sat there as a citizen of TT, as a Tobagonian and as a proud PNM really heartened by what the government has done undertaking since 2015 – a fiscal conservative and a prudent fiscal stance to manage the economy of TT since 2015. Sometimes persons forget the history and quite conveniently so. I always believe in the saying: 'If you forget your history, you’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.'”
He said he was troubled that no financial reports had been laid in the assembly by the current Secretary of Finance. Such reports would have then been open to public scrutiny.
“I let it slip in the first budget. You had the budget in June, you had your November statement, you did nothing. You came back with a second budget and there is no clear accountability of what you received in the past – expenditure, unspent balance.”
He said the national budget was a strategic intent of the administration to report to the nation in terms of the road map coming out of the PNM's Vision 2030 as to where it would take TT and how it would develop the country.
“If you look in that document, it will point to the role of Tobago. Tobago has a unique place in that economic development and we are not playing our part. And as a Tobagonian, I am concerned. We have to get this island back on its development trajector
