A near five billion dollar budget for Tobago yesterday, as THA Finance Secretary Joel Jack also sought to assure the citizenry that an end is in sight to the sea bridge problems.
In a near two-hour budget presentation delayed by two days because of Tropical Storm Bret, Jack assured that the THA had been in discussions with the Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan and the board of the Port Authority on the sea bridge issue. He described the ongoing problem as “unfortunate and untenable.”
Jack emphasised the importance of tourism to the Tobago economy in describing the planned Sandals hotel as a “game changer” for the Tobago tourism product. Sandals, he said, will address three shortcomings: airlift, the shortage of high quality rooms and promotion of Tobago as a tourism destination.
On the financial side, he said recurrent expenditure is estimated at 3.2 billion, a reduction of $22 million from last year’s request.
Of the $3.2 billion, the largest amount is for goods and services ($1.2B), followed by transfers and subsidies ($1.05B), personal expenditure ($858.3m), and minor equipment purchases ($127m).
The largest chunk of money goes to health ($694.1m), infrastructure and quarries ($539.5m), education, innovation and energy ($498.1m), tourism, culture and transport ($355.4m) and there’s an allocation of 2275 million for the Office of the Chief Secretary.
The development budget is $1.71 billion. Of that figure, $252 million will be allocated to social infrastructure, $738 million for economic infrastructure, $294 million for multi-sector and other sectors, with $20 million for the production sector.
Jack announced an allocation of $77.2 million for URP and $54 million for Cepep.
He boasted that based on initiatives taken by the THA, Tobago “has the lowest unemployment rate in the Caribbean of 3.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2016,” a rate which said “economists consider to be full employment.”
Noting there is a perennial shortfall in funding from central government, Jack said: “We will work with Chamber and other stakeholders to find a workable solution to challenges.”
Quoting figures, he said in 2001 there were 21,700 people employed in Tobago and by the third quarter of 2016 the figure had grown to 32,000.
Headline and food price inflation based on Central Bank figures, he said, were at single digits at three per cent and five per cent, respectively.
He said Tobago “had done exceedingly well. We should be proud of what we have been able to achieve.”
As he appealed for everyone to work together at what he said was a “critical juncture” for Tobago, he said now was not a time for “theatrics to score cheap political points.”
In the next year a number of projects are planned, including construction of a new terminal at the ANR Robinson airport, a desalination plant and expansion of the power generation capacity at the Cove, he said. A feasibility study will also be done on a cargo port facility for Tobago.
But Jack said the island is “highly vulnerable to the vagaries of the international economic environment,” as he noted that the services sector accounts for 90 per cent of the island’s GDP.