Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP David Lee has called on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to state the com­pen­sa­tion lev­els to be paid to coun­cil­lors, al­der­men, may­ors and deputy may­ors un­der Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form.

Lee did so in yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment de­bate on a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) re­port on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form Bill.

He was re­ply­ing to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who said UNC cor­po­ra­tions were qui­et­ly sup­port­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form but its 19 MPs were hin­der­ing the hopes and dreams of T&T’s 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple.

“Why are we re­sist­ing change for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es? This bill isn’t about pet­ty pol­i­tics but about civic pride,” Deyals­ingh added.

Lee agreed more could be done on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form and that the bill had some good things in it. But he said more work could be done if Gov­ern­ment lis­tened to its cor­po­ra­tions, as some PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions had raised valid con­cerns in the JSC re­port.

Lee not­ed that the PNM-con­trolled Point Fortin Cor­po­ra­tion called for com­pen­sa­tion to be done in­de­pen­dent­ly by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, rather than by Cab­i­net as the bill pro­posed.

Al­so, the PNM-con­trolled Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion queried the role of statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties, ser­vice com­mis­sions and the In­dus­tri­al Court, if pro­posed ex­ec­u­tive coun­cils would hire/dis­ci­pline staff.

Lee not­ed Im­bert had ex­pressed con­cern about poor com­pen­sa­tion and “pit­tance” coun­cil­lors get. But Lee said this min­is­ter, who’d once talked of “ze­ro, ze­ro, ze­ro,” is now talk­ing of good com­pen­sa­tion for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment of­fice­hold­ers.

“Does this Fi­nance Min­is­ter have a fig­ure for com­pen­sa­tion for coun­cil­lors, al­der­men, may­ors, deputy may­ors when this bill is passed?” Lee asked.

If he does, Lee said it should be stat­ed at the end of the de­bate what is the tar­get­ted com­pen­sa­tion lev­els pro­posed by the Cab­i­net.

Lee said judg­ing from Gov­ern­ment’s record, the re­port won’t be im­ple­ment­ed in the near fu­ture and it was a pub­lic re­la­tions ex­er­cise. “They know Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion around the cor­ner and they’re putting their house in or­der,” he said.

But the PNM’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les as­sured that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form and em­pow­er­ment will be Gov­ern­ment’s 60th-an­niver­sary gift to the peo­ple. He said the UNC pre­ferred to burn tyres all over their con­stituen­cies, go to the me­dia to claim racial and po­lit­i­cal bias and come to Par­lia­ment and block pro­gres­sive law.

Gon­za­les said many times he got re­quests from MPs on both sides to fix is­sues and the bill would as­sist every MP to deal with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment con­cerns they of­ten have; plus pro­vide em­ploy­ment for young con­trac­tors and busi­ness­peo­ple.

He as­sured Gov­ern­ment hears the cries about lack of fund­ing and re­lat­ed is­sues and the bill would pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty for some peo­ple and coun­cil­lors on such con­cerns.

“I don’t un­der­stand why the Op­po­si­tion won’t em­brace this to em­pow­er Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment bod­ies to en­hance their fi­nan­cial re­sources and peo­ple’s lives. This is about do­ing what’s nec­es­sary to help the peo­ple.”

Ac­cus­ing the UNC of giv­ing “all kinds of ex­cus­es,” walk­ing away from col­lab­o­ra­tion and giv­ing no pro­pos­als to as­sist the bill to help the pub­lic, Gon­za­les said, “In true PNM style, as been done on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions to ad­vance the peo­ple’s in­ter­est, we’ll per­fect our democ­ra­cy by en­act­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form.”

PNM’s Stephen Mc Clashie said yes­ter­day the bill may not be per­fect but pro­ject­ed there may be amend­ments and changes to make ahead to make it bet­ter.

”But we have to take the bull by the horns, im­ple­ment this and do all the work to make the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions that un­doubt­ed­ly will come in­to play.”

UNC MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe agreed with McLashie that the bill is a work in progress. His points in­clud­ed that TTPS of­fi­cers be trained by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and em­pow­ered to mea­sure deci­bel lev­els. He said that may pre­vent the “non­sen­si­cal sit­u­a­tion” where peo­ple call TTPS con­cern­ing noise pol­lu­tion and TTPS tells them call EMA.

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