The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion has de­fend­ed more than $500,000 ear­marked for Tu­na­puna Week, in­sist­ing the ex­pen­di­ture does not come from its De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme al­lo­ca­tion or af­fect fund­ing for es­sen­tial mu­nic­i­pal ser­vices.

In a news re­lease sent yes­ter­day, the Cor­po­ra­tion re­ject­ed claims by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­cil­lors that the cel­e­bra­tions re­flect mis­placed pri­or­i­ties while com­mu­ni­ties face in­ad­e­quate in­fra­struc­ture and ba­sic ser­vices.

The con­tro­ver­sy prompt­ed UNC coun­cil­lors and al­der­men to boy­cott the cel­e­bra­tions, in­clud­ing the Civic Awards cer­e­mo­ny. Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Prakash Barath ar­gued that the mon­ey could have fund­ed de­vel­op­ment projects in at least three UNC-con­trolled elec­toral dis­tricts.

How­ev­er, the Cor­po­ra­tion ex­plained that the Chair­man’s Fund, ap­proved by the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in 2020 un­der Sec­tion 110(1) of the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act, has spe­cif­ic au­tho­rised us­es, in­clud­ing char­i­ta­ble as­sis­tance, emer­gency re­lief, ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port, cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

It main­tained that the fund was nev­er in­tend­ed to fi­nance de­vel­op­ment projects or re­cur­rent mu­nic­i­pal ex­pens­es.

The Cor­po­ra­tion al­so said that its De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme al­lo­ca­tion was re­duced from $17.27 mil­lion in 2026 to $9 mil­lion in 2027, a cut of $8.27 mil­lion, or 48 per cent.

It ar­gued that the re­duc­tion lim­its its ca­pac­i­ty to un­der­take in­fra­struc­ture projects but does not af­fect the Chair­man’s Fund, which is not fund­ed by the Trea­sury.

On al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion, the Cor­po­ra­tion main­tained that the pro­posed 2027 De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme project list was still be­ing pre­pared and had not been sub­mit­ted to the Coun­cil for con­sid­er­a­tion and ap­proval. No fi­nal de­ci­sions had there­fore been made on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of projects across elec­toral dis­tricts. The re­lease al­so said all four UNC mem­bers present at the Fi­nance Stand­ing Com­mit­tee meet­ing on No­vem­ber 10 vot­ed in favour of ex­pen­di­ture on Tu­na­puna Week 2026.

The re­lease al­so drew com­par­isons with cel­e­bra­tions or­gan­ised by the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions. —APS