Copyright trinidadexpress
Although Trinidad has shuttered the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) and the Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP), Tobago is proceeding with Government business as usual. The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) is spending $27.2 million on these make-work programmes for fiscal 2025-2026. In the long run, this will likely be bad for the sister isle. Last month, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine assured Tobagonian URP/CEPEP employees that “there is no need to worry. You are going nowhere”. At a post-Executive Council news conference on Wednesday the THA’s Secretary of Finance, Petal-Ann Roberts, told the media, “CEPEP will be aligned to agriculture, URP will be aligned to more sustainable development goals. So, these programmes are very pivotal for our development.” These programmes, far from helping Tobago’s development, will likely slow it down. In Trinidad, both programmes were linked to gang rivalries, which drove up Trinidad’s murder rate. This was never the case in Tobago, but the dependency syndrome created by the THA is just as deleterious. According to 2022 figures from the Central Statistical Office (CSO), the Government employs 65% of Tobago’s labour force. The comparative ratio in Trinidad is 35%. The Government sector, comprising community, social, and personal services, accounts for 46% of Tobago’s economy, but 38% in Trinidad. Moreover, although Tobago is habitually touted as a tourist economy, that sector (grouped under wholesale, retail, restaurants, and hotels) accounts for just 14% of jobs in Tobago, compared to 19% in Trinidad. Put another way, Trinidad has a better claim to be a tourist destination than Tobago. But the starkest statistic of all is own-account workers—16% in Tobago, 19% in Trinidad. This by itself shows how State monies can disincentivise even the most independent people. Tobago’s history, and consequent culture, has always been that of a resilient populace, surviving many changes in governance by warring nations, always relying on themselves, no matter what the personages in power were doing. The statistics show how greatly that ethos has been undermined by THA handouts. Now, almost two-thirds of Tobago’s 31,000 employees rely wholly or partly on the Assembly and the Central Government for their incomes. This means many persons who would otherwise be in the private sector, or engaged in entrepreneurial ventures, are basically rocking back, collecting -Government money. This hampers development in any society, but it is especially pernicious for an island like Tobago, where tourism and its related activities are the most viable economic options. Nor are the regressive effects merely fiscal. The mindset inculcated by make-work programmes—dependency on the State, no linkages between productivity and wages, entitlement—is directly antithetical to the work ethos required for a thriving tourism sector. In tourism, employees are trained to be helpful, respectful, -efficient and hard-working. Unfortunately, such qualities are too often seen as signs of subservience, instead of an attitude that drives personal and national development. The THA is thus not helping Tobago by continuing with URP and CEPEP, and should phase out these programmes as soon as possible.
