KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has as­sured that mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions will re­ceive ad­e­quate fund­ing, even as the Gov­ern­ment moves ahead with plans to re­peal the Prop­er­ty Tax.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the Corinth/Cedar Hill In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tion in Ste Madeleine on Sun­day, Ameen re­called that dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion (2010–2015), cor­po­ra­tions op­er­at­ed ef­fec­tive­ly with­out the tax. She ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly weak­en­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment over the past decade—strip­ping it of fund­ing, deny­ing key staff, and sti­fling op­er­a­tions.

“You de­nied them the re­sources; you de­nied them the mon­ey and then at­tacked them for not per­form­ing,” she claimed.

“It is very clear in our flood mit­i­ga­tion ef­fort that every cor­po­ra­tion has the will­ing­ness and the ca­pac­i­ty once they get the re­sources, and I in­tend to strength­en lo­cal gov­ern­ment again.”

The for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion amend­ed the Prop­er­ty Tax Act in 2018, 2021, and 2024 to re­sume col­lec­tions to fund lo­cal gov­ern­ment pro­grammes such as in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ments, flood mit­i­ga­tion, lo­cal eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, and pub­lic ser­vices. Al­though tax col­lec­tion re­sumed in 2024, with an es­ti­mat­ed $135 mil­lion de­posit­ed in­to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund, for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert ad­mit­ted the funds had not reached mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions.

How­ev­er, Ameen was not con­vinced.

“This was a to­tal lie and ma­m­aguy. All our re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are just grate­ful and are look­ing for­ward to the new mid-year re­view and the new bud­get, that they will get, not promis­es again and again, but will ac­tu­al­ly get re­al mon­ey this time. The last PNM gov­ern­ment promised so much and ma­m­aguyed lo­cal gov­ern­ment so much. I think it is a re­lief.”

Prop­er­ty Tax had been part of a broad­er Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form agen­da aimed at de­cen­tral­is­ing pow­er and grant­i­ng mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions greater con­trol over fund­ing, de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

How­ev­er, Ameen dis­missed the PNM’s ap­proach as su­per­fi­cial, claim­ing that the re­form was to post­pone the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in 2021.

“So it was very clear that they had no in­ten­tion to re­al­ly re­form lo­cal gov­ern­ment.”

Al-Rawi re­sponds

For­mer min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi has called on Ameen to cor­rect the record, sug­gest­ing she may have over­looked key leg­isla­tive de­vel­op­ments.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi point­ed out that the Fi­nance Bill of 2023 in­tro­duced amend­ments to the Prop­er­ty Tax Act, and re­mind­ed that Ameen her­self par­tic­i­pat­ed in the de­bate in De­cem­ber 2023. He said the 2025 bud­get clear­ly out­lined an in­ten­tion to al­lo­cate a por­tion of prop­er­ty tax rev­enue to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions — but stressed that the col­lec­tion and dis­burse­ment of those tax­es fall un­der the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

Ac­cord­ing to Al-Rawi, Ameen’s com­ments in­di­cate a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

“By now, the whole world knows that Min­is­ter Tan­coo told the coun­try that there is an ex­ten­sion of the amnesty on tax­es, which means that there is an ex­ten­sion un­less it is clar­i­fied oth­er­wise, of the col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax­es. The prop­er­ty tax­es can­not be brought to a full ac­count from the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund, where they are col­lect­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance un­der law un­til the amnesty is over and the ac­count is closed,” Al-Rawi said.

Re­spond­ing to Ameen’s claims that the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion had starved mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions of re­sources, Al-Rawi urged fair­ness, stat­ing that the min­is­ter was still set­tling in­to her new role and had mis­rep­re­sent­ed the facts.