00:00Economist Dr. Varnus James tells the Morning Edition Tobago's economy continues to face
00:06structural challenges and says the budget offers little evidence of the kind of programs
00:13required to fundamentally reshape the island's economic future.
00:18First of all, when you look at the program, you could see that it's going to be funded
00:22heavily by the revenues from oil and gas, directly as taxes or royalties or valuations
00:29of borrowing and stuff like that. But you could see if from our history and the
00:35recent events we are in right now, oil and gas revenues are highly uncertain revenues.
00:41He also warns that long-term development cannot rely on a sector facing ongoing
00:46uncertainty. Dr. James believes Tobago must rethink its economic model.
00:53So the evidence in front of you is that you have to look elsewhere than
00:59agriculture or tourism or oil and gas. And people of course always talk about light
01:04manufacturing, which is really what we're doing in what we call our manufacturing
01:08sector. But the evidence we have from the CSO data is that the incomes light
01:13manufacturers generate for workers is about 16 percent below that of workers
01:18outside of that industry. The former United Nations policy advisor further weighed in on
01:25Tobago's dependency on Trinidad, noting that it's not about taxes generated on the island, ultimately
01:33flowing into the national system. He says the real issue is how Tobago positions its finances and resources.
01:42We have to take the development agenda seriously, is my point. And when you look at what is in the
01:49proposals,
01:50as well as what is in the midterm review, you don't see the type of program you need to move
01:57the national
01:58economy forward or to move the Tobago economy forward.
02:02Nicole M. Roveney, TV6 News.
02:05That's it.
02:05That's the пять- Academia president.
02:05And this over-N pontos has always been doing well for ESPETinals.
02:06Yeah, that's what's next time, don't you?
02:07You're going to come up with your administrator and you're going to go to any assunto for ESPETI is
