For­mer min­is­ter in the min­istry of fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning says the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is en­ti­tled to seek what­ev­er lev­el of fund­ing it be­lieves is nec­es­sary to meet the needs of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

How­ev­er, he stressed that any de­ci­sion on the fi­nal al­lo­ca­tion must take in­to ac­count the coun­try’s broad­er fis­cal po­si­tion and com­pet­ing de­mands on the na­tion­al bud­get.

THA is seek­ing a record $4.12 bil­lion from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment for fis­cal 2027. This is $400 mil­lion more than what the as­sem­bly asked for last year and rep­re­sents 6.6 per cent of the pro­ject­ed na­tion­al bud­get.