KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo says the Gov­ern­ment’s move to in­tro­duce a floor-cross­ing pro­vi­sion for lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives was prompt­ed by the de­fec­tion of two mem­bers of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, whom he called “trai­tors.”

Un­der the pro­posed pro­vi­sion, lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives would lose their seats if they ceased to be­long to the po­lit­i­cal par­ty un­der whose ban­ner they were elect­ed.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, ahead of de­bate on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, Mayrhoo said he had lob­bied Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for such a mea­sure af­ter Siparia West/Fyz­abad coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali and al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts left the par­ty.

Ali re­signed from the UNC in Au­gust 2024, say­ing in­ter­nal is­sues—in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and hu­man traf­fick­ing—were be­ing swept un­der the rug, while the par­ty lead­er­ship re­fused to ad­dress them di­rect­ly.

Ear­li­er this year, Roberts al­so broke ties with the UNC and aligned him­self with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), say­ing he dis­agreed with sev­er­al of the par­ty’s poli­cies af­ter it won the gen­er­al elec­tion in April 2025.

Mayrhoo called on Roberts to re­sign as an al­der­man af­ter he switched his al­le­giance. Roberts has re­fused to step down, ar­gu­ing that he is en­ti­tled to re­main on the cor­po­ra­tion.

Mayrhoo said the de­fec­tions con­vinced him that leg­is­la­tion was need­ed to pre­vent elect­ed lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from chang­ing po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance while re­tain­ing seats.

“This amend­ment was trig­gered by what tran­spired in the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion with Ja­son Ali and al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts. Those two trai­tors who crossed the floor and went across to the PNM.

“And I am very hap­py be­cause I have been lob­by­ing since that tran­spired with the po­lit­i­cal leader of our par­ty to have this amend­ment take place and they promised as soon as they get in­to Gov­ern­ment they will look at it. I am hap­py that move is be­ing made to­day be­cause what has hap­pened is that it has changed the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the cor­po­ra­tion when we were lead­ing the cor­po­ra­tion by eight-five, we were left with sev­en-five.

“We have be­come five and the PNM is now sev­en with the pass­ing of Romona Vic­tor. The fact that this piece of leg­is­la­tion will make sure that those who rep­re­sent a par­tic­u­lar po­lit­i­cal par­ty re­mains with that par­ty un­til the end of the term,” he said.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Roberts for com­ment, he said he would re­spond but had not done up to press time.

Mayrhoo was joined out­side Par­lia­ment by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro and San­gre Grande re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, who came to ob­serve the de­bate.

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ken­wyn Phillip al­so sup­port­ed the bill, say­ing an al­der­man or coun­cil­lor who cut ties with a par­ty should give up their po­si­tion.

“This is one of the things that all in lo­cal gov­ern­ment have been lob­by­ing for. When you are placed to serve, you are placed un­der a par­tic­u­lar ban­ner and I be­lieve that once you are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty un­der a par­tic­u­lar ban­ner noth­ing should de­ter you or cause you to cross the floor. If you cross the floor, which means you cut ties with the par­ty, then you should give up your po­si­tion whether it be al­der­man or coun­cil­lor,” he said.

Asked whether he was con­cerned UNC mem­bers on his cor­po­ra­tion might switch al­le­giances, as they did in Siparia, Phillip said he was not.

“No, no, no. I must say in San­gre Grande we are a team. We work to­geth­er. We do not seg­re­gate. We put peo­ple first,” he said.

The bill al­so pro­pos­es changes to sev­er­al ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, in­clud­ing San­gre Grande. Phillip wel­comed the pro­pos­al to give his cor­po­ra­tion bor­ough sta­tus.

“I must say I am hap­py to know that San­gre Grande was one of the cor­po­ra­tions be­ing con­sid­ered to turn in­to a bor­ough. I feel hap­py on be­half of the peo­ple of San­gre Grande. I just want to say to the peo­ple, we have vot­ed for a change. This is the change we have vot­ed for. Give the Gov­ern­ment time to work and all of us in the coun­try will ben­e­fit,” he said.

Beck­les: Gov­ern­ment
in ‘pan­ic mode’

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dis­missed Mayrhoo’s ex­pla­na­tion, ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of ap­proach­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form in “pan­ic mode.”

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment, Beck­les re­it­er­at­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s view that the pro­posed changes were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ahead of the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.

She ac­cused the UNC of try­ing to im­prove its elec­toral po­si­tion by in­creas­ing the num­ber of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing via cre­at­ing mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties in UNC strong­holds.

Beck­les said the law showed Gov­ern­ment was fo­cused on po­lit­i­cal gain rather than re­form.

“So they are ad­mit­ting that they pan­icked. They’re ad­mit­ting that it’s as a re­sult of a UNC coun­cil­lor and a UNC al­der­man cross­ing over to the PNM they brought this bill… They are say­ing to you that they have found them­selves in a sit­u­a­tion in the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, an em­bar­rass­ment to the Prime Min­is­ter as be­ing the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Siparia where they are try­ing to solve a prob­lem rather than recog­nise that it is their coun­cil­lor and their al­der­man who de­cid­ed that they want­ed no part of the UNC and come across to the PNM but it is more than that. Be­cause when you make these changes, it is al­ways about im­prov­ing the ser­vice and mak­ing sure that lo­cal gov­ern­ment is work­ing for the peo­ple,” Beck­les said.

She al­so ques­tioned oth­er changes, in­clud­ing ad­just­ments to the num­ber of coun­cil­lors. If the bill is passed, the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion would in­crease from sev­en coun­cil­lors to ten, while the num­ber of coun­cil­lors at the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion would be re­duced.

Beck­les crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment for not hold­ing pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions be­fore bring­ing the bill.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said Mayrhoo’s com­ments showed the Gov­ern­ment was propos­ing leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress its in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal is­sues.

“What you are see­ing in the bill is the UNC propos­ing leg­is­la­tion to deal with its in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal is­sues, its in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal prob­lems, and that’s the rea­son why I re­fer to the bill as the Vic­tor Roberts bill. It is clear that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the claus­es, as a mat­ter of fact, the en­tire bill, is self-serv­ing to the UNC. It is po­lit­i­cal ger­ry­man­der­ing to give the UNC an edge in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly they know they are go­ing to face de­feat in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. The oth­er pro­vi­sions ob­vi­ous­ly are to al­low the par­ty to con­trol per­sons who may have crossed the floor or may have dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives of their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance,” Gon­za­les said.

The cre­ation of the Bor­ough of Barataria would al­so mean changes for the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to in­flu­ence the out­come of the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.

“We see that the Gov­ern­ment is huge­ly un­pop­u­lar and now they would like to do all that they can do to en­sure that they win the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. So that’s just what it is, naked at­tempt,” she said.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Au­gust 2027.