The de­ci­sion of the Gov­ern­ment to bring lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fun­da­men­tal­ly ad­dress a core el­e­ment of our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment that has nev­er been per­mit­ted to play a cen­tral role in the gov­er­nance of this coun­try.

For far too long, lo­cal gov­ern­ment has been re­gard­ed as an af­ter­thought of the po­lit­i­cal process, ei­ther be­ing made sub­ject to the ex­i­gen­cies of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment or the po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience of the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate..

At in­de­pen­dence in 1962, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies that were in ex­is­tence at the time had had their last elec­tions as fol­lows:

1. Coun­ty Coun­cils—Feb­ru­ary 16, 1959

2. Mu­nic­i­pal Elec­tions (Ari­ma)—No­vem­ber 1, 1960

3. Mu­nic­i­pal Elec­tions (San Fer­nan­do)—No­vem­ber 1, 1961

4. Mu­nic­i­pal Elec­tions (Port-of-Spain)—No­vem­ber 3, 1961.

"In 1962, the term of of­fice of all coun­cil­lors in Coun­ty Coun­cils was ex­tend­ed by Or­di­nance No 1 of 1962 to such day as the gov­er­nor-gen­er­al would spec­i­fy in the Gazette. Al­so, in 1962, the term of of­fice of may­ors, deputy may­ors, coun­cil­lors, and al­der­men of the three mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties was ex­tend­ed by Or­di­nance No 20 of 1962 to such day as the gov­er­nor-gen­er­al would spec­i­fy in the Gazette.

Af­ter in­de­pen­dence on Au­gust 31, 1962, the Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion did not pro­ceed to ad­dress the is­sue of lo­cal gov­ern­ment un­til 1965. On May 25, 1965, the then Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Ger­ard Mon­tano, ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee to in­quire in­to the reap­praisal of the sys­tem of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in this Coun­try in the con­text of In­de­pen­dence."

The com­mit­tee was chaired by Mi­tra Sinanan, QC and held its first meet­ing on June 3, 1965 and re­port­ed on Jan­u­ary 22, 1966. One ma­jor rec­om­men­da­tion was as fol­lows:

"292. We do agree that there is need to re­de­fine the ge­o­graph­i­cal bound­aries of the re­spec­tive Coun­ty Coun­cils to pro­vide for a more even rep­re­sen­ta­tion in terms of pop­u­la­tion and size and rec­om­mend ac­cord­ing­ly." (p 60).

There is good rea­son to be­lieve that the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Sinanan Com­mit­tee in­flu­enced both the Gov­ern­ment as well as the Bound­aries Com­mis­sion in prepar­ing for the first Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions af­ter in­de­pen­dence in 1968.

By virtue of The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Or­di­nances (Amend­ment) Act 1967 (No. 21 of 1967), the con­cept of mul­ti-mem­ber elec­toral dis­tricts us­ing the first-past-the-post sys­tem that had been used for elect­ing mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil­lors was re­placed by sin­gle-mem­ber dis­tricts us­ing the first-past-the-post sys­tem. This Act came in­to force on June 17, 1968. The amend­ments in­clud­ed, in­ter alia:

(i) The Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion Or­di­nance, Ch. 39, No 1—sec­tion 13 re­pealed and re­placed to pro­vide for twelve (12) Coun­cil­lors with one Coun­cil­lor be­ing re­turned per dis­trict.

(ii) The San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion Or­di­nance, Ch. 39, No 7—sec­tion 13 re­pealed and re­placed to pro­vide for nine (9) Coun­cil­lors with one Coun­cil­lor be­ing re­turned per dis­trict.

(iii) The Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion Or­di­nance, Ch. 39, No 11—sec­tion 13 re­pealed and re­placed to pro­vide for six (6) Coun­cil­lors with one Coun­cil­lor be­ing re­turned per dis­trict.

By virtue of The Coun­ty Coun­cils Act 1967 (No 22 of 1967), mul­ti-mem­ber elec­toral dis­tricts us­ing the first-past-the-post sys­tem were re­placed by sin­gle-mem­ber dis­tricts us­ing the first-past-the-post sys­tem. This act came in­to force on June 17, 1968. It re-en­act­ed and amend­ed the law re­lat­ing to Coun­ty Coun­cils and pre­scribed that one coun­cil­lor shall be elect­ed in each elec­toral dis­trict.

The Bound­aries Com­mis­sion that had been ap­point­ed on Oc­to­ber 30, 1963, had its pow­ers ex­tend­ed by "The Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment) Act 1967” (Act No 18 of 1967) which had as its long ti­tle An Act to ex­tend the func­tions and pow­ers of the Bound­aries Com­mis­sion for the pur­pos­es of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions and for mat­ters in­ci­den­tal there­to."

The first re­port of the Bound­aries Com­mis­sion for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions was dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 15, 1968. Short­ly af­ter that, "The Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment)(Mu­nic­i­pal Coun­cils) Or­der 1968" was made by the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al and came in­to ef­fect on April 1, 1968.

The first lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions af­ter in­de­pen­dence were held on June 24, 1968. Af­ter that, the tim­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions would be­come er­rat­ic and was nev­er con­sis­tent­ly held on time. They were de­layed in 1971 by a few months, then a se­ries of er­rat­ic elec­tion dates be­came the or­der of the day—1977, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2010, 2013 and 2016.

Hope­ful­ly in 2019 elec­tions will be held on time and giv­en fu­ture pro­tec­tion.