ABC The $50 million Tiwi Islands port development.

A series of delayed development projects promising income and jobs for Tiwi people has led to calls for the Tiwi Land Council (TLC) regional authority to be replaced.

A $50 million port development, said to be worth up to $200 million in export revenue, has fallen months behind schedule.

A major forestry plantation project, developed in partnership with the council by company Sylvatech and then Great Southern, has also struggled to get off the ground.

The setbacks have raised concerns about TLC governance problems. Meanwhile, high rates of unemployment on the Tiwi Islands remain a source of community frustration and anger.

Former Northern Territory deputy chief minister Marion Scrymgour has called on the Commonwealth and Territory governments to deliver a new regional authority.

"I think there's been a whole lot of investments that have been wrong," she said.

"If this was a business or an organisation in mainstream Australia there'd be an outcry because it's taxpayer money. And yet because it's a remote Aboriginal community it doesn't hit the Richter scale.

"I've had concerns for a long time. I think I've done about two to three submissions to the Senate and tried to get through successive federal governments an independent external inquiry.

"Those two big projects have failed. People often forget that there were 52 business on the Tiwi Islands that have failed and gone bankrupt or people have walked away.

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Tiwi Islands: Delays to multi-million-dollar port, forestry project turn up heat on land council