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  • 7 months ago
The Tobago House of Assembly will be seeking through the mid-term budget review to get its Parliamentary allocation increased to five-point one percent, up from the four-point three percent it was allocated for 2025.

The Finance Secretary Petal-Ann Roberts and the Chief Technical Advisor Division of Finance Anslem Richards addressed the issue on Thursday on a Tobago morning show.
Elizabeth Williams has more.
Transcript
00:00I would bring a list of items, critical priority items for Tobago for consideration.
00:07Mr. Richards and I have been in conversation even before as to what we'd like that conversation to be like
00:12and what we want the list to look like.
00:13So first things first, and this was an advice from my chief technical advisor,
00:18that we should seek that 5.1% difference.
00:21We got 4.35 and we'll be seeking the 0.8% additional.
00:28To be fair to Tobago so that everyone can enjoy and receive their dollar.
00:33So that was one of the things. So we are hinging it on that.
00:35So if we get between $300 million and $500 million, I think we'll be able to settle most of our liabilities
00:43and some of the initiatives that we want to advance in this fiscal year.
00:46The finance secretary said there is a list of 44 priority projects on the cards for next month's budget.
00:53Top priority is to get our priorities settled and done.
00:58And of course these contractors' payments are also top of our list.
01:03Every single year at the mid-year, we go to the minister and say,
01:06when I met with the minister of finance last year, that was one of the 10 items.
01:13How are we going to settle?
01:14And his response was, all governments have large liabilities.
01:17And then he indicated that when they took over from the UNC in 2015, they still owe these contractors.
01:25Mrs. Roberts said the THA inherited $1 billion in debt from the previous P&M administration.
01:32She then hastened to reveal the millions in outstanding monies paid to contractors to date.
01:38I would like to tell the public so far, in fiscal 2023, we paid $42 million to contractors.
01:46In fiscal 2024, we paid $26 million to contractors.
01:51And this year we're making a commitment of $25 million.
01:53We've already started to pay $10 million.
01:56And now we're good.
01:57Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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