Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

Akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­scrib­ing the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, as a gift to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go as she ap­proach­es 40 years in pub­lic life, hav­ing be­gun her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer as an al­der­man.

“This bill, Mr Speak­er, is just one of my gifts of ser­vice in this mile­stone year. Promis­es made, promis­es kept,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

Re­flect­ing on her po­lit­i­cal jour­ney, the Prime Min­is­ter said she be­gan her ca­reer 39 years ago lis­ten­ing to or­di­nary cit­i­zens speak about the hard­ships they faced, the com­mu­ni­ties they called home and the fu­ture they want­ed for their chil­dren.

She said those ex­pe­ri­ences helped shape her pur­pose in pub­lic life and that the leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sent­ed a re­turn to those be­gin­nings, this time as Prime Min­is­ter.

“Now en­ter­ing my 40th year of pub­lic life, my jour­ney re­turns to its be­gin­ning. I stand as Prime Min­is­ter, ad­vanc­ing the re­form I promised to the peo­ple whose needs first called me to serve,” she said.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of dis­play­ing “se­lec­tive out­rage” over the leg­is­la­tion, say­ing the par­ty spent ten years promis­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form with­out de­liv­er­ing mean­ing­ful change.

She ar­gued that the PNM was now at­tempt­ing to ob­struct re­forms her ad­min­is­tra­tion had promised the pop­u­la­tion and was de­ter­mined to im­ple­ment.

“The an­nounce­ments kept com­ing. The peo­ple kept wait­ing,” she said.

“PNM does not own the right to re­form lo­cal gov­ern­ment and its un­fin­ished work can­not be­come a pro­hi­bi­tion on our work.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the leg­is­la­tion ful­filled a com­mit­ment she made in 2019 to re­form lo­cal gov­ern­ment based on land area, vot­er num­bers and fair mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries. She ac­cused the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion of re­peat­ed­ly an­nounc­ing re­forms, con­duct­ing con­sul­ta­tions and pro­duc­ing pro­pos­als with­out im­ple­ment­ing mean­ing­ful changes.

“For 10 years, they pro­mot­ed much-tout­ed lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form. NA­TO, no ac­tion, talk on­ly. That’s what they are, no ac­tion, talk on­ly,” she said.

She al­so ac­cused the PNM of re­peat­ed­ly post­pon­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, claim­ing it had done so three times be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress took of­fice in 2010.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther crit­i­cised the PNM’s 2022 lo­cal gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, say­ing on­ly one clause was pro­claimed, which fa­cil­i­tat­ed an­oth­er post­pone­ment of elec­tions.

Un­equal fund­ing and

rep­re­sen­ta­tion

Per­sad-Bisses­sar then ac­cused the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of al­lo­cat­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly more re­sources to small­er PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions than larg­er UNC-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

Cit­ing the 2025 de­vel­op­ment es­ti­mates, she said Point Fortin, con­trolled by the PNM, re­ceived $17.65 mil­lion for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 peo­ple, com­pared with $17.15 mil­lion for the UNC-con­trolled Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Cor­po­ra­tion, serv­ing 178,410 peo­ple.

“That is in­equal­i­ty. That is in­equity that we have to fix and that is what we’re try­ing to do to­day,” she said.

She al­so com­pared Ari­ma, which re­ceived $18.25 mil­lion for 33,606 peo­ple, with Ch­agua­nas, which re­ceived $17.25 mil­lion for 83,560 peo­ple.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged that some PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, were al­so dis­ad­van­taged un­der the ex­ist­ing arrange­ments.

She ar­gued that the in­equal­i­ty ex­tend­ed be­yond fund­ing, point­ing to sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in the num­ber of elec­tors served by in­di­vid­ual coun­cil­lors.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures she pre­sent­ed, coun­cil­lors in Point Fortin rep­re­sent­ed an av­er­age of 2,969 elec­tors, com­pared with 11,378 in Tu­na­puna and 4,315 in Ari­ma.

She said these dis­par­i­ties demon­strat­ed why mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries need­ed to change, ar­gu­ing that res­i­dents in larg­er mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties should not have to com­pete with thou­sands more peo­ple for their rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ at­ten­tion.

The leg­is­la­tion would in­crease the num­ber of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions from 14 to 17, com­pris­ing three cities, eight bor­oughs and six re­gion­al mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

Ger­ry­man­der­ing

al­le­ga­tions re­ject­ed

Turn­ing to Op­po­si­tion al­le­ga­tions of ger­ry­man­der­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed the leg­is­la­tion was con­sti­tu­tion­al and re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the Gov­ern­ment was ma­nip­u­lat­ing elec­toral dis­tricts.

“There’s not a sin­gle con­sti­tu­tion­al breach in this bill. None,” she de­clared.

She ex­plained that Par­lia­ment was re­spon­si­ble for de­ter­min­ing mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, while the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) re­tained re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for de­lim­it­ing elec­toral dis­tricts.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee re­view­ing mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, say­ing the PNM had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­point­ed po­lit­i­cal fig­ures to sim­i­lar com­mit­tees.

She ques­tioned why the Op­po­si­tion con­sid­ered such ap­point­ments ac­cept­able un­der its ad­min­is­tra­tion but ob­jec­tion­able un­der the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the leg­is­la­tion would re­quire the EBC to sub­mit a re­port to Par­lia­ment with­in 90 days of procla­ma­tion, set­ting out the elec­toral dis­tricts for the new­ly con­fig­ured mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

She said the pro­vi­sion was iden­ti­cal to one used by the PNM in its 2021 To­ba­go bound­aries leg­is­la­tion and was in­tend­ed to en­sure the re­struc­tur­ing process did not stall af­ter the Bill be­came law.

“Oth­er­wise, as I say, this bill could lan­guish,” she warned.

Floor-cross­ing and

coun­cil dead­locks

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed pro­vi­sions re­quir­ing coun­cil­lors and al­der­men to va­cate their seats if they re­signed from or were ex­pelled by the po­lit­i­cal par­ty un­der which they se­cured of­fice.

She com­pared the mea­sure to Sec­tion 49 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which ad­dress­es par­lia­men­tary floor-cross­ing.

“You win the seat on a par­ty tick­et,” she ar­gued.

She al­so out­lined pro­vi­sions to re­solve dead­locks in se­lect­ing may­ors and chair­men, in­clud­ing de­ter­min­ing lead­er­ship through a par­ty’s ma­jor­i­ty or plu­ral­i­ty of votes across a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the changes would re­move un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing tied votes and dis­put­ed lead­er­ship se­lec­tions.

She fur­ther re­vealed that she per­son­al­ly in­sist­ed on pro­vi­sions pro­tect­ing mu­nic­i­pal work­ers dur­ing re­struc­tur­ing, in­clud­ing suc­ces­sion rights, prop­er­ty rights, ex­ist­ing oblig­a­tions, li­a­bil­i­ties and rights of ap­peal.