Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) will come to an end on Sep­tem­ber 13, with Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen say­ing the pro­gramme could re­sume and be ex­pand­ed de­pend­ing on fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed in the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get.

Ameen made the dis­clo­sure in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs about the pro­gramme’s ef­fec­tive­ness and what would hap­pen to the main­te­nance of pub­lic spaces once it ends.

Ameen said NPUPS, which cur­rent­ly em­ploys 1,684 work­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go, was in­tro­duced fol­low­ing a pi­lot pro­gramme be­tween No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber 2025.

The pi­lot was sub­se­quent­ly ex­pand­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od be­fore end­ing in March.

The ex­pand­ed NPUPS pro­gramme was then rolled out in April and May with 1,684 work­ers dis­trib­uted across all 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

Ameen said the pro­gramme has al­so trained work­ers in ar­eas in­clud­ing dis­as­ter man­age­ment, pow­er saw and oth­er pow­er-tool op­er­a­tions, flood re­lief, ba­sic re­sus­ci­ta­tion and first aid.

She said the pro­gramme’s Sep­tem­ber 13 end date was linked to the up­com­ing Bud­get.

Ameen said she hoped the pro­gramme could even­tu­al­ly be ex­pand­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly to pro­vide greater cov­er­age in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

“It is my hope that we could ex­pand the pro­gramme to in­crease the cov­er­age par­tic­u­lar­ly for rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.”

The Min­is­ter al­so sought to dis­tin­guish NPUPS from the for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), ar­gu­ing that the two pro­grammes op­er­at­ed dif­fer­ent­ly.

She said NPUPS was de­signed to re­store re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the main­te­nance of pub­lic spaces to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions while pro­vid­ing them with ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er and re­sources.

Ac­cord­ing to Ameen, NPUPS work­ers main­tain road­ways, parks, ceme­ter­ies, recre­ation grounds and oth­er spaces un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, while al­so as­sist­ing with pa­n­yards and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres.

She said 383 schools were ser­viced by the pro­gramme ahead of the open­ing of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Ameen al­so crit­i­cised the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing it of fail­ing to ad­e­quate­ly strength­en mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and claim­ing that the for­mer CEPEP mod­el un­der­mined their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

She said more pub­lic funds are reach­ing work­ers un­der NPUPS be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has re­moved con­trac­tors from the process.

“This Gov­ern­ment has cut out the mid­dle­man, cut out the con­trac­tor, cut out the friends and fam­i­ly and the cor­rup­tion.”

How­ev­er, Sen­a­tor Attzs pressed Ameen on what would hap­pen to pub­lic spaces dur­ing the pe­ri­od be­tween the end of NPUPS and the pro­gramme’s pos­si­ble re­sump­tion fol­low­ing the Bud­get.

Ameen said mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions would con­tin­ue to car­ry out their le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties dur­ing the in­ter­im pe­ri­od.

She said the Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus would now be on strength­en­ing the in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

She con­ced­ed that the cor­po­ra­tions face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges.

“The truth is that the av­er­age cit­i­zen is not sat­is­fied with the work done by the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and that is a re­al­i­ty we have to face.”

Nev­er­the­less, Ameen said she be­lieved the cor­po­ra­tions would be able to ad­dress is­sues aris­ing be­tween Sep­tem­ber 13 and the re­sump­tion of NPUPS.