Farley: Dark days ahead for Tobago

Minority Assemblyman Farley Augustine, Representative for Parlatuvier/L’Anse Fourmi/Speyside, says dark days are ahead for Tobago as the 2018/2019 national budget given the island’s dependence of the Trinidad economy.

Augustine, commenting on the 2018/ 2019 budget at the Minority’s weekly media conference at James Park on Tuesday, in offering an analysis of the budget, contended that the ‘turnaround’ for the TT economy as indicated by by Finance Minister Colm Imbert was “fictitious.”

On Imbert’s possible growth of 1.9 per cent for 2019 for the TT economy, Augustine said his examination of the IMF report of September 2018 states that “our growth for 2019 will be at 0.8 percent.

“So, there is some disparity between what the Minister is suggesting in terms of growth and what the IMF says…”

Augustine also compared Imbert’s assertion that the manufacturing sector grew by 7.3 per cent with the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago data of July this year which said “there have been decreases in our manufacturing by six per cent and that we also had a decrease in construction by 4.2 percent.

“So therefore…it seems that the turnaround is fictitious. Because when there is an economic turnaround, there are certain measurable things that you would see and experience and we are not seeing those things. The Minister is mis-predicting our growth…” he said.

Augustine said in this context, the situation is worse for Tobago.

“Our economy in large parts revolve around the distribution sector, that is those who brings goods to the island which is then distributed to the supermarkets and other supply stores - and that has been down.

“When we look at the domestic tourism for the island, that too has been negatively impacted by the inter-island transport woes.

“When we look at the arrivals in terms of foreigners, that too has been down.

“Tobago has not really seen any gains… There is no significant growth on the island, our economy in Tobago is really devastated. The Tobago economy has been mismanaged, the interisland ferry service has been decimated, we have neglected the need to fix Caribbean Airlines function properly. Things are not looking up,” he said.

Augustine contended that the Tobago’s economy could no longer stand on its own and withstand certain shocks.

“It means that we have to find markets for niche products that we would create ourselves. You need to ask yourselves what are the products that we can create best and that we can sell the world at a premium price and make lots of money from. We have to start having those conversations…” he said.

The Tobago House of Assembly’s budgetary allocation is $2.229 billion for fiscal 2019. Of that $1.979 billion would be used for recurrent expenditure, $231.63 million for capital expenditure and $18 million for the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP). The allocation to the Assembly represents 4.03 per cent of the national budget.