Duke scoffs at Sieuraj's 'sick joke'

Minority Leader Watson Duke is giving Rampersad Sieuraj, president of the Penal/Debe Chamber of Commerce, time to clarify his comments about swapping the national budgetary allocation to Tobago with that for the Penal/Debe regional corporation.

The political leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) said Tobago's allocation is insignificant and the island should be receiving a much bigger slice of the national pie. In October, Finance Minister Colm Imbert presented a $53 billion national budget with Tobago receiving $2.3 billion – close to four per cent of the national budget..

“I’ll give him a chance to clarify the sick joke that he has made. I want to tell him and those like him, that Tobago’s annual financial supply by Trinidad is but a mere expectation of what we require to run Tobago. Tobago is undeveloped and we require more money to develop Tobago,” Duke said in a WhatsApp voicenote on Wednesday.Duke described the issue of flooding in the Penal/Debe area as “trivial” before reminding Sieuraj how crucial Tobago’s allocation is to the island and its people. “That money is life for us. It’s every single thing. It's medication, it's education, it's gas, everything and he is saying here, use it to fix leaks. He’s here saying give the finance that 60,000 persons depend upon for their existence for their life, give it to them in Penal, let them fix flooding.” Sieuraj at a press conference on Monday at the Couva/Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce’s office in Couva, said two years of Tobago’s annual allocation should be given to Penal/Debe Regional corporation.

“Then take the five or six billion dollars unaudited expenditure of Tobago’s 50,000 people and solve the problem of Penal/Debe’s 90,000-plus people. Notwithstanding the Tobago House of Assembly and the constitutional guarantees, I dare our MPs to agitate for this,” Sieuraj said.His comments were classed as “provocative” and “insulting” to Tobagonians by Duke who went on to say, “this has now further damaged the relations that exist between TT.”

He said the only thing that needs to be done with Tobago funds is to properly manage it.

“Hence the PDP is trying to get rid of the PNM leprosy that has damaged the way Tobago has looked over the last 20 years. It’s time to get rid of the PNM and of the people like that president who is making that insensitive statement like if Tobagonians are just playing ludo with the money."