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Monday, July 14, 2025

Hosein distances himself from ‘urban bias’ claims

by

Radhica De Silva
2159 days ago
20190815
Minister of Local Government 
Kazim Hosein

Minister of Local Government Kazim Hosein

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein said he has no part to play in the al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources to re­gion­al Corps. His re­sponse came af­ter claims of an “ur­ban bias” in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources to UNC-led Corps. But he as­sured cit­i­zens that there will be a more eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources once lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form comes on stream.

In an in­ter­view, Ho­sein said he was not in charge of re­source al­lo­ca­tion and so he could not com­ment on claims by the Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that UNC-led Corps were get­ting far few­er re­sources than PNM Corps.

He ex­plained that each Corp puts out their bud­get re­quests which are then sent to the Min­istry of Fi­nance. Asked on what grounds re­sources were al­lo­cat­ed, Ho­sein said he did not know as this was not un­der his purview.

“You need to speak to the Fi­nance Min­istry to find out the cri­te­ria for re­source dis­tri­b­u­tion. We don’t have a say in that,” he added.

He not­ed, “Once the lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form comes in Corps will have to col­lect their own tax­es and they will have di­rect con­tact with the Min­istry of Fi­nance. That is­sue will re­solve it­self when the re­form comes in so the Corps can ne­go­ti­ate for what it wants.”

Over the past week, the UNC-led Siparia and Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Corp chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh and Dr Allen Sam­my com­plained that they were un­able to ser­vice the ar­eas be­cause of lim­it­ed funds. Is­sues of garbage col­lec­tion and wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion have been com­pro­mised in sev­er­al ar­eas. Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the Corp has re­ceived on­ly one-twelfth of its fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment be­cause of un­time­ly re­leas­es from the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“We have no mon­ey to pur­chase prop­er san­i­ta­tion gear and our work­ers are re­fus­ing to go in and do the work. This has caused an in­fes­ta­tion of rats, mos­qui­toes and pests,” Ra­mad­hars­ingh said.

“ How can that be ac­cept­able? This is not de­vel­op­ment, it is rur­al ne­glect.”

Sam­my al­so said his Corp was al­lo­cat­ed $82 mil­li­on bud­get for fis­cal 2019 and $67 mil­li­on was ap­pro­pri­at­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture such as salaries, rent and main­te­nance while $13.9 mil­li­on was for its de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes such as drainage projects, ve­hi­cle pur­chas­es and road re­pairs. He not­ed that the Corp can­not af­ford to pay T&TEC and WASA the $2.1 mil­li­on it owes for sup­plies to its fa­cil­i­ties, $19,000 for ve­hi­cle main­te­nance and $43,000 to ex­ter­nal wa­ter sup­pli­ers among oth­ers.

FIS­CAL 2019 Es­ti­mates

Lo­ca­tion Pop­u­la­tion Size Al­lo­ca­tion

Port-of-Spain City Corp 37,999 223,972,000

San Fer­nan­do City Corp 50,429 130,950,900

Ari­ma Bor­ough Corp 29,073 78,262,800

Point Fortin Bor­ough Corp 16,874 63,430,600

Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Corp 67,055 79,442,800

Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Corp 88,151 100, 879,200

San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Corp 135,840 169,175,500

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Corp 174,647 179,060,800

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Corp 57,105 80,715,800

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­poro Re­gion­al Corp 147,438 111,892,000

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Corp 29,511 82,041,100

Siparia Re­gion­al Corp 71,802 75,668,800

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Corp 76,427 64,700,700

Princes Town Re­gion­al Corp 81,420 83,261,900

TO­TAL 1,422,575,700

- SOURCE Draft Es­ti­mates of Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture 2019, Pg. 260


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