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| Joel Jack, Secretary of Finance THA |
The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) may trigger provisions of the Dispute Resolution Commission (DRC) in the THA Act to seek arrears of funding of hundreds of millions of dollars in budgetary allocations dating back to 2010. The statement was made by THA Finance and Enterprise Development Secretary, Assemblyman Joel Jack, at yesterday’s post — executive council media briefing.
Jack said: “We have that mechanism at our disposal and I believe that at the conclusion of our deliberation (with the Minister of Finance) that might be one of the options available to us. “In addition to getting this year’s arithmetic correct we also have the issue of previous year’s balances that are owed to the THA.”
Jack said beyond the legal measure in terms of financing Tobago’s developmental agenda a THA team, led by Chief Secretary Orville London, recommended to the minister, if he was unable to fund Tobago’s development needs, to allow the THA under the law to float two Tobago Development Bonds, a billion dollars this year and a billion dollars in another year.
He added that in the light of the strong credit rating of BAA 1 by Moody’s Investors Services, the liquidity in the banking system, as well as low interest rates and the recent FCB public share offer, he believed that investors in the market were looking to park their funds. Jack added: “The assembly has the ability to approach the bond market. We have taken the necessary steps to do so and I believe it is time.
“We cannot be shackled in terms of Tobago’s developmental agenda to be constrained by subvention budgeting and subvention financing. “I believe that we are at a critical juncture in Tobago’s development and the response to the mandate given to us by the people. It is time that the Minister of Finance sits and discusses with us by the end of September an amicable solution to this issue.”
Jack, who was commenting on the $61.3 billion budget presented to Howai on Monday, said while there were some positives in the budget, “we in the THA are concerned with the allocation to Tobago. “I want to clear up a misnomer that people are thinking that the assembly received 5.39 per cent of the budget. That has to be corrected. At the barest minimum the assembly received 4.03 per cent and there is a bit of contention about it,” he added.
He said what the minister added to the THA allocation of $2.477 billion was the over $800 million allocated to other ministries within Trinidad and within the Ministry of Tobago Development. “The assembly has only received 4.03 per cent,” he said.
Source:Guardian
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