Chief Secretary Orville London is comfortable with the level of the 2009 budget allocation for Tobago. He said there were really no surprises in the budget presentation by Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira in Parliament on Monday.

London, who was in the Parliament to listen to the presentation noted that Tobago, had been provided with 90 per cent of its request under recurrent expenditure and under the development programme allocation, ’we would be able to deal with all the development challenges for the year’.

He noted that the allocation of $2.65 billion had come after a series of discussions between the THA and the Finance Ministry.

London said Tobagonians should not only look at the island’s allocation but also the increases in old age pension and other social benefits and they must not lose sight of them. Benefits also included the subsidy on gasoline and the $200 million plus a year in subsidy for the inter island ferry service as well as the subsidised airfare and free travel on the ferry service for persons 65 years and over.

He added that in addition to the allocation, the central Government had already committed itself to provide the financing for completion of the hospital, the $.5 billion for the electricity power plant, $600 million for the natural gas plant and $50 million for airport expansion.