FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert says Tobago always benefits under PNM governments, whether or not the party also controls the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).
Imbert made this point when he addressed a Conversations with the Prime Minister forum in Scarborough, Tobago on May 23.
He told the audience he is baffled by claims in the public domain that Government starves the THA of funding simply because the PNM is not in charge of the assembly.
Imbert said nothing could could be further from the truth.
"It's a little known fact that when times were tough under the previous (PNM) administration in Tobago, we did not have enough cash flow to give Tobago its subvention on a quarterly basis.We just didn't have enough money. Things were very rough in the early years, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 – and don't talk about 2020, when covid came."
Against this background, Imbert continued, an arrangement was made to give the THA its subvention on a monthly basis instead of quarterly.
In December 2021, the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) defeated the PNM 14-1 in the THA elections.
Shortly after the PDP won, Imbert said, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine asked to meet with him.
He added that Dr Rowley, "as someone who loves Tobago, asked me to meet with Farley."
That meeting happened on December 23, 2021.
At that meeting, Imbert said the previous arrangement whereby the THA received its subventions from central government was discussed.
He added that Augustine asked him how the THA could receive its subventions.
"Could you give us two months out of the three months in advance, and then give us the third month in month three? Because there are 12 months in a year. Every quarter you have three months."
Imbert said Augustine was basically asking for the THA to receive its subventions quarterly, with two thirds being received in the first two months of each quarter and the rest in the third month.
"I said okay. It was all in the spirit of collaboration."
Imbert said this dispelled the myth that the PNM was starving the Augustine-led THA of financial resources.
"So this new assembly has been treated better. I know they have some people inside here who would not be too happy about that, but that's what we did.
"So the new assembly is getting money in bigger blocks, quicker than the PNM House of Assembly. So that's the first thing that needs to be known, because I'm sure that you didn't know that."
Imbert quoted from documents to support this position.
He told the audience that from 2018-2021, the PNM-led THA received allocations of $2.26 billion, $2.27 billion, $2.34 billion and $2.817 billion respectively.
Imbert said the first year of the Augustine-led THA in office would have been December 2021-December 2022.
Central government released a total of $2.38 billion in funding to the THA in 2022.
This figure increased to $2.578 billion last year.
Imbert said, "The most amount of money released to the THA between 2016 and 2021 was $2,578,000 released in 2023 to this assembly."
But this was not a
