Pri­or to and since my days as a lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­porter in the 1980s - and through the years as a close ob­serv­er and com­men­ta­tor - there have been mil­lions of words writ­ten and spo­ken by oth­ers on why this arm of na­tion­al gov­er­nance is im­por­tant, if not in­dis­pens­able.

Yes, some had found con­ve­nient suc­cour in the views of the late (great) in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Ger­ald Fur­ness-Smith, who fa­mous­ly ques­tioned, decades ago, the val­ue and vi­a­bil­i­ty of lo­cal gov­ern­ment in such a small space.

In fact, if you check the records, the sen­a­tor was ac­tu­al­ly more in­clined to pro­pose greater care in fram­ing leg­is­la­tion and ac­tion that seek to de­volve more pow­er and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­to the hands of lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Over the years, the par­lia­men­tary record, pub­lic com­men­tary, po­lit­i­cal de­c­la­ra­tions, and the de­lib­er­a­tions of suc­ces­sive lo­cal gov­ern­ment and con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions have placed on the pub­lic record, more than a short sup­ply of both wis­dom and rhetor­i­cal fol­ly when it comes to this sub­ject.

In 2016, I was in­vit­ed to serve as mod­er­a­tor for a se­ries of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions through­out Trinidad on the fu­ture of our sys­tem of lo­cal gov­ern­ment. Un­der ex­am­i­na­tion were sev­er­al pro­posed in­no­va­tions, in ad­di­tion to nu­mer­ous ret­ro­spec­tives un­der­tak­en over the years.

Among the in­valu­able in­puts for that as­sign­ment were the lega­cies of past min­is­ters such as Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan and Hazel Man­ning, who had com­mit­ted the sub­ject to deep­er in­spec­tion.

Then lo­cal gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, the late Franklin Khan, not un­like his pre­de­ces­sors, was a sup­port­er of de­vo­lu­tion and of agen­das that veered in the di­rec­tion of more, rather than less, pow­er and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies - fu­elled by a greater de­gree of fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence.

This would mean not on­ly less re­liance on cen­tral gov­ern­ment benev­o­lence - sub­ject as it is to po­lit­i­cal whim and pref­er­ence - but al­so an en­hanced abil­i­ty to ser­vice a cus­tom­ar­i­ly wide va­ri­ety of op­er­a­tional, fi­nan­cial, and so­cial and cul­tur­al needs.

An en­su­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form Act of 2022, which came a year af­ter Khan’s death, was not unan­i­mous­ly sup­port­ed. The then Op­po­si­tion ab­stained from vot­ing on it but nev­er whol­ly re­ject­ed it.

The act lat­er came un­der the scruti­ny of the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil, when it was used as leg­isla­tive ref­er­ence to ex­tend the life of then-in­cum­bent lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The Privy Coun­cil ruled in favour of the ex­ten­sion of tenure.

At­tract­ing even more at­ten­tion was the pro­posed em­ploy­ment of the Prop­er­ty Tax as a pri­ma­ry source of rev­enue for lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies, with pro­vi­sion for the fill­ing of fi­nan­cial short­falls giv­en vast dif­fer­en­tials re­lat­ed to ge­og­ra­phy, de­mog­ra­phy, and oth­er pe­cu­liar­i­ties that bear on rev­enue po­ten­tial. Min­is­ter Khan called it a “top-up.” I can­not re­call sig­nif­i­cant op­po­si­tion to the idea dur­ing the con­sul­ta­tions.

Had such fund­ing been avail­able to­day, there would most like­ly have been less con­tention and vex­a­tion re­gard­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment fi­nan­cial pri­or­i­ties and sov­er­eign pre­rog­a­tives.

What is meant by greater “au­ton­o­my” is that lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties should have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to frame and im­ple­ment their own in­di­vid­ual plans – al­beit with­in the bounds of na­tion­al as­pi­ra­tions.

In some in­stances, these can in­clude oc­ca­sion­al “win­ing” and even some “fete­ing.” At this time of year, such ac­tiv­i­ties/abil­i­ties are con­sid­ered mar­ketable as­sets for sale and na­tion­al dis­play to prospec­tive vis­i­tors.

All of this is with­out prej­u­dice to the well-known fact that work eth­ic is­sues have pre­vailed from time im­memo­r­i­al, through po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tions, and across the full spec­trum at both cen­tral and lo­cal lev­els.

Dur­ing the 2016 con­sul­ta­tions, there were earnest bi­par­ti­san at­tempts to ad­dress this phe­nom­e­non, for it is known to per­sist, what­ev­er the po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion in charge - lo­cal or na­tion­al.

In the views of some, over­lap­ping re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with the ubiq­ui­tous pres­ence of CEPEP and URP of­fered suf­fi­cient op­er­a­tional and cog­ni­tive gaps to ex­cuse lo­cal gov­ern­ment tru­an­cy and un­der­per­for­mance.

In that sense, those op­er­a­tions - no­tably un­der sep­a­rate com­mand - could have had the ef­fect of un­der­min­ing the work of lo­cal gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tives to the ex­tent that po­lit­i­cal con­flu­ences or con­flicts of­ten oc­curred.

In the end, we all know that on the small, im­por­tant, every­day is­sues, lo­cal gov­ern­ment per­for­mance and ex­pec­ta­tions vast­ly out­strip the val­ue of par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any po­lit­i­cal com­plex­ion.

You can al­so of­ten tell when a politi­cian has tran­si­tioned from lo­cal gov­ern­ment to cen­tral gov­ern­ment du­ties. These are not in­con­gru­ous roles, and one could ar­guably be a pre­req­ui­site for the oth­er.

Some­day, pull such politi­cians aside and ask them how they feel about the dis­em­pow­er­ing of lo­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty through im­pe­r­i­al cen­sure and edict. In­sist on hon­esty. Then ask burgess­es what they think about all this – all 30.55% of them who vot­ed in 2023.