Joel Julien

Who­ev­er wins the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) wins the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, ac­cord­ing to the re­sults of the last three lo­cal polls.

In the 2003 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) won the TPRC by claim­ing nine of the 13 elec­toral dis­tricts in the cor­po­ra­tion which were up for grabs. The PNM won the elec­tions that year.

When the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held some sev­en years lat­er on Ju­ly 26, 2010, the num­ber of elec­toral dis­tricts in the TPRC was in­creased to 15.

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion gained con­trol of the TPRC fol­low­ing the 2010 elec­tions by claim­ing 11 out of the 15 elec­toral dis­tricts. The coali­tion won the gen­er­al elec­tion that year.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ac­count­ed for six of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's 11 elec­toral dis­tricts in the TPRC while the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) ac­count­ed for the re­main­ing five.

When the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held on Oc­to­ber 21, 2013, the PNM man­aged to wrest con­trol of the TPRC from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

The PNM won 12 out of the 15 elec­toral dis­tricts.

Out of the re­main­ing three elec­toral dis­tricts, the COP won two and the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) won one. The PNM al­so won the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

One of the largest mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties

The TPRC has one of the largest phys­i­cal ar­eas among the 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

It cov­ers over 500 square kilo­me­tres with its bound­aries ex­tend­ing from St Joseph in the West, to Waller­field in the East, Blan­chisseuse in the North, and Cunu­pia in the South. In the 2013 lo­cal elec­tions the TPRC had 168,340 peo­ple on its elec­toral list.

Ac­cord­ing to the TPRC's web­site "there are some 71 dis­tinct lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties and they range from ur­ban such as Curepe, St Au­gus­tine, Trinci­ty, Tacarigua and Arou­ca to ur­ban/com­mer­cial to rur­al/agri­cul­ture in na­ture such as Blan­chisseuse, Bras­so Seco, La La­ja and Heights of Gua­napo."

The TPRC has es­tab­lished "Strate­gic Goals and Op­er­a­tional Strate­gies".

The goals of the TPRC, ac­cord­ing to its web­site, "are to al­le­vi­ate pover­ty, en­cour­age self-re­liance and build a com­mu­ni­ty of which its burgess­es can be proud, to cel­e­brate com­mu­ni­ty achieve­ments and to build civic pride" and in pur­suance of the achieve­ment of those goals the sev­en "spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tives" were es­tab­lished.

What the peo­ple say

This week the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the area un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the TPRC to get the view of its burgess­es on how the cor­po­ra­tion has been match­ing up to its sev­en "spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tives".

Num­ber one on its list, the TPRC said, is to "de­vel­op and en­hance the re­gion's phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture".

"This in­volves the nam­ing and re­nam­ing of streets, parks and recre­ation grounds; the in­stal­la­tion of signs on streets and oth­er pub­lic places; the pro­vi­sion of street lights; the build­ing and re­pair­ing of roads and bridges; the de­vel­op­ment of pro­grammes to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing; build­ing and main­tain­ing pub­lic busi­ness and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties," the TPRC's web­site stat­ed.

Tacarigua res­i­dent June An­to­nia Nunes gave the TPRC a pass­ing grade in this re­gard.

Nunes votes in the Cau­ra/Par­adise/ Tacarigua elec­toral dis­trict.

The UNC won this elec­toral dis­trict in the 2003 and 2010 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions be­fore the PNM won it in 2013.

Nunes praised the TPRC for dredg­ing the near­by Tacarigua Riv­er, re­cent­ly build­ing a much-need­ed box drain along Richard Street where she lives as well as plac­ing a "Stop" sign at the street's cor­ner. The TPRC has al­so con­struct­ed a "Wel­come to Tu­na­puna" sign over the East­ern Main Road.

While Nunes was able to point out some of the work done by the TPRC, there were al­so some signs where the cor­po­ra­tion fell short.

At least two street signs with­in a 50-me­tre dis­tance were in need of much re­pair.

"To be hon­est I think the cor­po­ra­tion re­al­ly does a lot of work. I know peo­ple think they don't do any­thing but they re­al­ly work and I will vote this elec­tion be­cause it makes a dif­fer­ence," Nunes said.

The sec­ond goal out­lined by the TPRC is "to de­vel­op poli­cies aimed at in­creas­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness in the man­age­ment of the Re­gion's re­sources".

"The Cor­po­ra­tion needs to de­vel­op poli­cies that would es­tab­lish mech­a­nisms for con­tin­u­ous plan­ning and as­sess­ment, en­hanc­ing its sys­tem of com­pli­ance and in­creas­ing its rev­enue base through the es­tab­lish­ment of user fees and re­lat­ed ini­tia­tives," the TPRC's web­site states.

Steve Ed­wards, a ven­dor from Mara­cas/San­ta Ma­g­a­ri­ta, said he does not know if the TPRC has been able to ac­com­plish this goal but he thinks that in­creas­ing the cor­po­ra­tion's rev­enue base is nec­es­sary.

The Mara­cas/San­ta Mar­gari­ta elec­toral dis­trict was won by the PNM in 2003.

In the 2010 elec­tions, how­ev­er, the elec­toral dis­trict was won by the COP. The PNM re­claimed the elec­toral dis­trict in 2013.

"I can't give them a fair rat­ing on that be­cause I'm not sure how they get mon­ey but dur­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tions the Gov­ern­ment spoke about there be­ing more ef­fi­cien­cy with rev­enue for the cor­po­ra­tions and I am all for that," Ed­wards said.

The third goal stat­ed by the TPRC is "to main­tain the health of burgess­es through the cre­ation of an ef­fi­cient Pub­lic Health sys­tem".

"The achieve­ment of this ob­jec­tive would af­fect the Re­gion's en­vi­ron­ment. It is close­ly re­lat­ed to the en­hance­ment of the phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, and iden­ti­fies the ac­tiv­i­ties of garbage col­lec­tion, clear­ing wa­ter­cours­es, grass cut­ting and ro­dent and pest con­trol," the TPRC web­site states.

Ruth Mar­tin gave the TPRC a thumbs down with re­spect to this ob­jec­tive.

Mar­tin is reg­is­tered to vote in the D'Abadie/Cara­po elec­toral dis­trict.

The PNM won this elec­toral dis­trict in 2003.

The UNC won the elec­toral dis­trict in 2010 be­fore the PNM re­claimed it in 2013.

Mar­tin said there was an is­sue with garbage col­lec­tion at Wall Street in Pey­tonville.

When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed there were dis­card­ed car tyres and mat­tress­es thrown at the side of a ma­jor road.

Mar­tin said there was al­so the is­sue of over­grown grass on the pave­ment.

The fourth ob­jec­tive is "to en­sure the se­cu­ri­ty of the Re­gion through the es­tab­lish­ment of an ef­fi­cient Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice.

"This ob­jec­tive is in­tend­ed to im­prove the se­cu­ri­ty of the re­gion. It in­cludes the con­struc­tion of im­proved fa­cil­i­ties for the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, the ac­qui­si­tion and train­ing of per­son­nel to bet­ter serve the burgess­es."

Raoul David from Ma­coya/Trinci­ty could not rate the TPRC in this re­gard but said he be­lieved the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol (CCP) was do­ing a good job.

He said the TPRC, how­ev­er, failed in its fifth ob­jec­tive "to de­vel­op a pro­gramme for un­em­ploy­ment re­lief."

David said all the com­mu­ni­ty has is the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep).

The sixth ob­jec­tive is "to en­hance sport and youth de­vel­op­ment in the Re­gion."

Gi­na Clarke from La Floris­sante/Cleaver said the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah ful­fils this.

"Every­one goes to Ed­die Hart. There are two sets of ex­er­cise ma­chines there. Every night it is full of life, every morn­ing there are peo­ple al­so," Clarke said.

She al­so said the TPRC ful­filled its sev­enth ob­jec­tive which is "to com­mem­o­rate na­tion­al fes­ti­vals and cel­e­brate com­mu­ni­ty achieve­ment".

"We are a di­verse area. We have all the races, all the re­li­gions and we cel­e­brate all, and I think the TPRC tries to ho­n­our all," she said.