Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Minority Leader Ashworth Jack has said it was unfortunate and unfair for Finance and Enterprise Development Secretary Dr Anslem London to blame public servants for the shortcomings noted in the 2003 Auditor General's Report into the finances of the Assembly.

Speaking in response to London's presentation of the $2.93 billion THA budget for fiscal 2009 yesterday, Jack said he was "not suggesting that anybody took anything, but somebody had to know". He said: "It is unfortunate that there is $395 million in assets and there was no register and nobody knew there was no register."

He added that policy procurement guidelines, which should have come into force in October 2000 called for the establishment of a fixed-assets summary of each division to state acquisition, disposal and date of transfer of items.

Jack said it was unfair to blame the public servants because when something was good the Secretary took the credit and when something went wrong the blame was put on the public servants.

Jack, who spent two hours and twenty minutes in his reply, the same as the Finance Secretary's presentation, made several recommendations of what he thought the Assembly should do in the areas of tourism, agriculture and fisheries, infrastructure, education, youth, sport, transportation, housing and healthcare.

He called on the Assembly to establish study halls and lunch rooms in schools, as well as introduce technical education in primary schools.

He also called for the installation of cameras at traffic lights on the island and the purchase of three highway patrol vehicles for the Tobago Police Division to patrol the Claude Noel Highway to curb speeding.

Jack said one of the reasons for the problems facing Tobago at present was the non-functioning of cargo and vehicle scanners at the Scarborough Port. He suggested the introduction of a mentoring programme for youths on the island and assistance to young sportsmen and women when they had to go to Trinidad to participate in events.