Farley not hopeful Tobago will be treated well

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go stake­hold­ers are brac­ing for dis­ap­point­ment in the 2025 Bud­get, cit­ing years of re­duced al­lo­ca­tions in com­par­i­son to their re­quests.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day said the is­land should ex­pect an­oth­er dose of un­fair treat­ment when the fis­cal pack­age is de­liv­ered on Sep­tem­ber 30.

“I am not hope­ful that the bud­get mea­sures will re­dound to the re­bound­ing of the econ­o­my. Not hope­ful that the mea­sures he will present will pro­vide for peace, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for all. Not hope­ful that the bud­get will cause cit­i­zens to hope for a brighter fu­ture. Not hope­ful that To­ba­go will be treat­ed well in the mea­sures to be pre­sent­ed,” he said.

Oth­er stake­hold­ers are not ea­ger about the up­com­ing pre­sen­ta­tion ei­ther, with some al­ready pre­dict­ing an emp­ty bud­get for the is­land.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­pha Lorde said he ex­pects noth­ing big.

“New year same thing. The re­al­i­ty is his­tor­i­cal lyrics. We have had bud­gets read and num­bers put for­ward as to X for se­cu­ri­ty, X for tourism and we have not had an ac­count­abil­i­ty that says for the mon­ey put for­ward we would have achieved the things that we were go­ing to do. My con­cern is we are go­ing to go in­to a new fis­cal year not nec­es­sar­i­ly be­ing able to re­view clear­ly the things that were sup­posed to get done,” he said.

Lorde does not ex­pect to re­ceive the $3.$3.956 bil­lion—5.8 per cent of the Na­tion­al bud­get— laid out in Au­gus­tine’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion last June.

To­ba­go’s bud­get re­quest in­cludes a re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture of $2.81 bil­lion, $1.002 bil­lion for de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture, $91.9 mil­lion for the URP and $43.8 mil­lion for CEPEP.

Last fis­cal year, the THA re­quest­ed $4.54 bil­lion from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to man­age the is­land’s af­fairs. The is­land re­ceived $2.585 bil­lion, with $2.298 bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $216 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture, and $18 mil­lion for the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme.

“Nine out of ten times, the of­fer from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment is usu­al­ly small­er than that which is bud­get­ed. So the ex­pec­ta­tion of be­ing able to achieve some­thing is shrunk im­me­di­ate­ly and items have been repri­ori­tised,” Lorde said

Still, he hopes to see mea­sures that work to help the is­land gen­er­ate forex to ease the ex­ist­ing short­age.

“In­vest in tourism a whole lot more and Tourism can help al­le­vi­ate the forex chal­lenge. That is not a de­bat­able ques­tion. The fact is the tourism sec­tors will bring hard dol­lars to the des­ti­na­tion and those hard dol­lars will off­set the forex chal­lenges,” he said.

To­ba­go Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George made three wish­es for the is­land. One is for im­me­di­ate re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act, which he said has sti­fled busi­ness­es on the is­land.

“This is leg­is­la­tion which has been on the books since 2008-2009 and it has ham­pered and stymied any and all for­eign in­vest­ments in To­ba­go. Every day you hear busi­ness per­sons com­plain­ing about the lack of for­eign ex­change, the dif­fi­cul­ty to ac­quire for­eign ex­change, the in­abil­i­ty to source their goods and to pay for things that are com­ing in from abroad, and yet, still, you have leg­is­la­tion on the books that is ham­per­ing and pre­vent­ing and cre­at­ing an ob­sta­cle to di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment in To­ba­go,” George said.

His sec­ond wish is for To­ba­go to be made a VAT and du­ty-free zone.

“To­ba­go can be the cen­tre­piece for re­tire­ment in the Caribbean if you make it a VAT-free zone. Peo­ple can come here to re­tire and they do not have that bur­den of VAT. It’s go­ing to be at­trac­tive for even Trinida­di­ans to come here and re­tire.”

His fi­nal wish is to see the ar­rival of To­ba­go’s car­go ves­sel, which was promised last year fol­low­ing a food cri­sis trig­gered by a fire on board the Cabo Star.