00:00The minister in his, you know, preliminary conversation started with a caveat of the government's position.
00:08It is not very good. I don't want to get into too much detail.
00:11I think the minister's responsibility to bring that to the country,
00:15but basically gave a general overview of where we are at as a government.
00:19And it is in that context where I had to pull back the requests.
00:23Because really and truly what we were requesting is the difference between 4.35%
00:30and the minimum that we are asking for now going forward of 5.1%.
00:35And that would bring us to about $448 million.
00:39Mrs. Petalan Roberts spoke on Monday on a Tobago morning show.
00:44She said there are funding gaps to be filled by the Tobago House of Assembly.
00:48We did make a request and they did say they will try their best to accede to that request
00:54to see how best we can, you know, just close that funding gap for this fiscal year.
01:00So far, we have shifted, transferred monies from recurrent to DP in the amount of $120 million.
01:08As I said, the recurrent expenses, sorry, the development program is grossly underfunded.
01:14So every year we make those shifts.
01:15So we have 44 priority projects, 38 development projects,
01:19and we have so far shifted $120 million from recurrent to development program.
01:26Discussions with the finance minister also featured around property tax,
01:30the ability to borrow, an IDB loan of U.S. $64 million taken by the previous administration,
01:38and there was also a meeting with planning minister Kennedy Surat Singh.
01:42She feels confident under this government, Tobago would get what Tobago wants.
01:48I feel more confident than ever before.
01:52I've not only met in these conversations as Secretary of Finance, but as a technocrat,
01:57I've been in the room with Ovi London when he was chief secretary, the former Secretary of Finance, Joel Jack.
02:03And this meeting, to me, the mutual respect and the attitude to seek Tobago's interest,
02:14I felt that more than ever before.
02:17I am hopeful that it would materialize into something positive for Tobago.
02:21The minister said he did get instructions from the prime minister to ensure that Tobago's need element
02:29and hear us out, hear what our needs are.
02:33And one of the critical matters I brought to his attention is the overdraft facility that we have to include
02:37because we get these releases so late.
02:40Last June, the THA presented a $3.956 billion budget.
02:46Last September, the THA received a $2.599 billion.
02:51Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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