Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A war of words has erupt­ed be­tween Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne over the fi­nan­cial state of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions.

The dis­pute fol­lows a Face­book post by the may­or on Sat­ur­day, in which he claimed that all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions are fac­ing se­vere fi­nan­cial con­straints.

In his state­ment, Al­leyne de­scribed what he called a “fis­cal fi­as­co” stem­ming from the 2026 Bud­get, de­clar­ing, “All Cor­po­ra­tions are short of mon­ey to pay pub­lic ser­vant salaries and/or NIS con­tri­bu­tions.”

He warned that the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion could soon be un­able to meet its oblig­a­tions, adding, “In the case of the City of Port-of-Spain, we can’t pay pub­lic ser­vant salaries or NIS af­ter May 2026.”

The may­or al­so high­light­ed wider is­sues af­fect­ing mu­nic­i­pal op­er­a­tions. Ac­cord­ing to him, “At least one Cor­po­ra­tion hasn’t paid trav­el­ling al­lowance to pub­lic ser­vants since Au­gust 2025,” and he al­so warned of fur­ther dis­rup­tion to es­sen­tial ser­vices. “The City of Port-of-Spain can’t pay east POS garbage con­trac­tors af­ter June 2026.”

Al­leyne con­tend­ed that the al­leged fi­nan­cial chal­lenges be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced were crip­pling the cor­po­ra­tions. “No mon­ey to pay pub­lic ser­vants, no mon­ey to pay NIS, no mon­ey to pick up garbage, and no mon­ey to pay for parts to fix ve­hi­cles, as­phalt to fix roads, or ce­ment to fix pave­ments. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is rolling from the ICU to the L’Hos­pice.”

How­ev­er, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter Ameen dis­missed the claims out­right, say­ing: “The May­or’s claims are rub­bish.”

Ameen ar­gued that the cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions al­ready bur­dened with mil­lions of dol­lars in debt.

She stat­ed, “The UNC Gov­ern­ment met Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions' mil­lions of dol­lars in debt due to in­suf­fi­cient bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions and even where there were al­lo­ca­tions, a sup­pres­sion of fund­ing by not re­leas­ing mon­ey to the cor­po­ra­tions.”

She point­ed to long-stand­ing fi­nan­cial chal­lenges, adding, “One cor­po­ra­tion be­ing in 30 mil­lion debt for scav­eng­ing ser­vices alone did not hap­pen un­der the UNC Gov­ern­ment. An­oth­er cor­po­ra­tion be­ing three years in ar­rears to T&TEC did not hap­pen un­der UNC.”

The min­is­ter said ef­forts are now un­der­way to sta­bilise the sys­tem.

“We are com­mit­ted to fix­ing it and debt man­age­ment has to in­clude pri­or­i­tiz­ing ser­vice de­liv­ery over throw­ing fete.”

She al­so re­vealed that dis­cus­sions have al­ready tak­en place with mu­nic­i­pal lead­ers: “We just con­clud­ed a very pro­duc­tive meet­ing of all 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties where we agreed on our re­quests for mid-term re­view.”

Ameen fur­ther ac­cused the may­or of po­lit­i­cal grand­stand­ing. “He is sim­ply seek­ing at­ten­tion be­cause he has a poor track record of per­for­mance and he’s au­di­tion­ing for PNM to put him back as may­or.”