Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui

The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act tells a sto­ry that most cit­i­zens nev­er read, but live every sin­gle day. The Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (DM­BC) did not be­gin as a Bor­ough in name alone; it emerged from the re­struc­tur­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment un­der the Mu­nic­i­pal Act, which was as­sent­ed to on Sep­tem­ber 13, 1990, es­tab­lish­ing and re­form­ing Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions across Trinidad and To­ba­go. From that mo­ment, the DM­BC was not sim­ply a ge­o­graph­ic space; it be­came a cor­po­rate body, with per­pet­u­al suc­ces­sion, em­pow­ered to act on be­half of its peo­ple. That is where the promise be­gins. But some­where be­tween promise and prac­tice, some­thing has gone qui­et.

Un­der the Act, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of a Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion are not vague as­pi­ra­tions; they are clear­ly struc­tured du­ties. The Coun­cil, made up of the May­or, Al­der­men, and Coun­cil­lors, is man­dat­ed to ex­er­cise the pow­ers of the Cor­po­ra­tion and act through its of­fi­cers and staff.

This in­cludes over­sight of:

• ↓Streets, drainage, and in­fra­struc­ture

• ↓Pub­lic health and san­i­ta­tion

• ↓Build­ing reg­u­la­tions and de­vel­op­ment con­trol

• ↓Com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices and fa­cil­i­ties

• ↓Fi­nan­cial stew­ard­ship and ac­count­abil­i­ty

In sim­ple terms, the DM­BC ex­ists to re­spond, to man­age, and to serve. Not to de­lay. Not to de­flect, and cer­tain­ly not to dis­ap­pear in­to si­lence.

Be­cause here is the hu­man side of leg­is­la­tion. The part no Act can ful­ly script. Nine let­ters, nine at­tempts to en­gage, nine for­mal ef­forts to ac­ti­vate a sys­tem de­signed to re­spond. As at April 13, 2026, the an­swer echoes back with bu­reau­crat­ic po­lite­ness: “The mat­ters raised in your cor­re­spon­dence and emails are un­der re­view.” Un­der re­view. A phrase that sounds re­spon­si­ble but feels like a pause but­ton with no in­ten­tion of press­ing play.

Let’s be hon­est for a mo­ment. “Un­der re­view” is not a re­sponse—it is a hold­ing pat­tern. And when it stretch­es from weeks in­to months, it be­gins to erode some­thing far more valu­able than time: pub­lic trust. Be­cause the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act did not cre­ate Bor­oughs to be pas­sive ob­servers. It cre­at­ed them to be ac­tive stew­ards of their com­mu­ni­ties. The Act em­pow­ers Coun­cils to meet, de­lib­er­ate, make de­ci­sions, and take ac­tion. It even pro­vides for struc­tured meet­ings, com­mit­tees, and the del­e­ga­tion of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to en­sure ef­fi­cien­cy and re­spon­sive­ness. So when months pass with­out res­o­lu­tion, the is­sue is no longer ad­min­is­tra­tive—it be­comes sys­temic.

What does “un­der re­view” look like to the or­di­nary cit­i­zen?

It looks like:

• ↓A pot­hole that re­mains a haz­ard

• ↓A drainage is­sue that wors­ens with every rain­fall

• ↓A de­vel­op­ment con­cern that goes unan­swered

• ↓A com­mu­ni­ty voice that feels un­heard

It feels like knock­ing on a door that some­one is clear­ly be­hind … but un­will­ing to open.

And this is where per­sua­sion must meet ac­count­abil­i­ty. Be­cause the DM­BC is not an ab­stract in­sti­tu­tion - it is fund­ed by the peo­ple, gov­erned for the peo­ple, and ac­count­able to the peo­ple. The law gives it au­thor­i­ty. But the peo­ple give it le­git­i­ma­cy.

So the ques­tion is not whether the mat­ters are “un­der re­view.” The re­al ques­tion is: What is the time­line for ac­tion? What mech­a­nisms are be­ing ac­ti­vat­ed? What de­ci­sions are be­ing made? What out­comes can be ex­pect­ed? Be­cause re­view with­out res­o­lu­tion is sim­ply de­lay dressed in for­mal lan­guage.

There is a qui­et ex­pec­ta­tion em­bed­ded in every let­ter sent to a pub­lic body: “You will re­spond, not just with words, but with ac­tion.” And per­haps that is the call now, not con­fronta­tion, but clar­i­ty. Not frus­tra­tion, but firm in­sis­tence. Be­cause gov­er­nance is not proven in pol­i­cy doc­u­ments—it is proven in re­spon­sive­ness.

The DM­BC was es­tab­lished to serve. The Act pro­vides the frame­work. The cit­i­zens pro­vide the voice, and some­where be­tween those three, the sys­tem must be­gin to move again. Be­cause “un­der re­view” can­not be the fi­nal an­swer.

The ex­pec­ta­tion is not per­fec­tion, but re­spon­sive­ness. The DM­BC is now called up­on to pro­vide clear writ­ten up­dates on all out­stand­ing mat­ters, es­tab­lish time­lines for res­o­lu­tion, and en­gage di­rect­ly with stake­hold­ers to re­store con­fi­dence in its role as a re­spon­sive and ac­count­able pub­lic body.