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Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh-Dat­too

Over the past decade, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al bud­gets have fluc­tu­at­ed with chang­ing oil and gas prices, rev­enue short­falls, and per­sis­tent fis­cal deficits. Against this back­drop, To­ba­go’s al­lo­ca­tion from the na­tion­al bud­get has re­mained a steady point of fo­cus.

In 2015, To­ba­go re­ceived its largest al­lo­ca­tion in re­cent years — $3.7 bil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing 5.7 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get. This was well above the rec­om­mend­ed min­i­mum al­lo­ca­tion of 4.03 per cent, as set out by the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion in 2000. How­ev­er, be­gin­ning in 2016, To­ba­go’s share de­clined and has since av­er­aged be­tween 4.3 and 4.5 per cent an­nu­al­ly.