The National Budget and Tobago
July 27, 2003
by Dr Winford James
(C)hief (S)ecretary Orville London loves the phrase 'at the end of the day'. Indeed, he loves it so much that you can bet good money he will use it in every other speech and you will win every time. I don't know that he has a nickname, but 'End of Day' would not be an unsuitable one. For the umpteenth time in his experience of speech-giving, he used it in a press briefing following budget talks with junior finance minister Conrad Enill. Apparently, the talks had gone well, and London was optimistic that the next national budget would be 'truly reflective of Tobago's needs, and Tobago's wishes, and Tobago's requests'. He said, 'I did not say that we are going to get every single thing we have asked for, but I am confident that at the end of the day, the THA and Tobagonians should be satisfied that with what is in store for them in fiscal 2004.'
At the end of the day - his temporal metaphor generally for the conclusion of whatever issue and, in this case, for the budget presentation (and any adjustments as a result of post-presentation talks). He clearly measures issues in terms of metaphorical days, some of which have begun and are still traveling. Like the Pigeon Point Day and the Logging of Timber Day. The former either has reached the courts or will soon be there but, in the process, has slowed down to enable formulation of guidelines and legislation for the management and protection of Tobago's coasts. I am not sure where the latter has reached, but the last I heard of it was that the CS had, unlawfully it seems, temporarily banned logging in the island, an action vigorously challenged by persons with licences.
Let's call the instant matter - London's expectations of the 2003-2004 budget - Enill's Tobago Budget Day. Now, don't go changing the name, for though it could be argued that it is London's budget or the THA's or Tobago's, by virtue of London's executive council having developed it, at the end of the day it will be Enill's budget, for it will be Enill, the central government's messenger, who will have the last say (in a manner of speaking) on the allocations.
That's how we have arranged to fund Tobago's business. The THA proposes and the central government disposes. There is no legal requirement, except the determination of a Dispute Resolution Commission such as the one resorted to by former CS Hochoy Charles and former PM Basdeo Panday, for the central government to either give Tobago what the latter deems necessary to run its affairs in a given year or give the island a specified proportion of national budgets. So Tobago has been forced to take what it gets either through the traditional route of offer and inevitable amendment or, when water more than flour, through the ruling of a Dispute Resolution Commission.
The Dispute Resolution Commission was invoked in a context of adversarial politics, with the central government run by one party and the THA by another, each with a radically different agenda for Tobago, the one conservative, the other aggressive. But in a state of affairs where there has been a reversion to the same ruling party in both Tobago and Trinidad, and with a PNM approach of doing things 'quietly' (and, by extension, often surreptitiously), it is not surprising that London is relying on constant dialogue based on goodwill and co-operation.
Is that the best model for Tobago's development?
It should be clear that it cannot be better than one according to which Tobago either funds itself autonomously or is guaranteed a percentage of the budget, both by law. Earning your keep or knowing beforehand what you are worth, on rationally established bases, must be better for your own development, in particular your development planning, than depending on the goodwill and co-operation of others - especially if the latter are not political family. One may even say, even if you belong to the family but are big enough and different enough.
But in the current and recent political circumstances of Trinidad and Tobago, where the two major parties, PNM and UNC, have had an equality or near-equality of seats in general elections, the Tobago results are critical to the determination of who takes central government power, and therefore give Tobago an extremely sensitive bargaining power in several matters. We have already seen that PM Manning has given Tobago much more representation in the senate as well as his executive than any other prime minister. I think he has become politically smart enough (or perhaps has shed enough of his arrogance) to take the same attitude to budgetary allocations.
At the end of the day, therefore, it is far more on the hard political ground of the potential of losing Tobago and, most probably, office in Trinidad and Tobago, than on the religious notions of central government goodwill and co-operation that Tobago will get a budget in keeping with London's optimistic expectations.
And at the end of another day (Waiting on Trinidad Day?), an end too long in coming, it would be far better for Tobago to be in a position to make its own budgetary allocations than to keep depending on the discretions or goodwill of a minister of finance in any central government. What you say, End of Day?
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