Job creation a focus for 2020 THA budget

Kinnesha George-Harry

JOB creation is among five key areas of focus of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) budget for fiscal 2020. The budget will be presented at the Assembly Legislature in June, before being forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for consideration in the national budget.

Deputy Chief Secretary and Secretary of Finance and the Economy, Assemblyman Joel Jack made the announcement as he addressed members of the media during last Wednesday’s post Executive Council media briefing at the Victor E Bruce Financial Complex, Scarborough

The Secretary said the Assembly’s budget process for fiscal 2020 has commenced.

He said, “All Divisions were mandated to prepare and submit their estimates by the end of April 2019. To assist us in our preparations of budget priorities for fiscal 2020, we would host – as we have done in the past – our pre-budget survey to ensure that we have as wide as possible input from Tobagonians and to ensure that Tobagonians are allowed to give their views and to inform public policy. Our pre-budget survey will be hosted and it would start shortly…If it is not currently in progress, then it should early next week.”

The budget, according to Jack, will be heavily influenced by the Assembly’s medium-term policy and planning framework for 2019-2023. He said the Comprehensive Economic Development Plan for Tobago 2.0 ended in 2017, and the Assembly's medium-term policy is now in focus “as we seek to guide the affairs of the Assembly over the next four years.”

He added, “A couple areas of focus of the medium-term planning framework would be job creation and providing an enabling environment for private sector expansion, improving productivity in alignment with appropriate infrastructure development, capacity building in the public sector, improving food and energy security, restoring growth and promoting diversification. These five objectives are all interrelated and mutually reinforcing, covering all industries and economic sector as well as every aspect of social life in Tobago.”

In 2018, the Assembly requested a total of $4.5 billion from Central Government for its fiscal 2019 budget, but they were only allocated $2.229 billion.

Of that figure, $1.979 billion was assigned for recurrent expenditure, $231.63 million for capital expenditure and $18 million for the Unemployment Relief Programme. The allocation to the Assembly represented 4.03 per cent of the national budget.