Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are await­ing word from Gov­ern­ment on their op­er­a­tions and coun­cil­lors’ sta­tus fol­low­ing the re­cent Privy Coun­cil judg­ment—and Pe­nal/Debe cor­po­ra­tion head Dr Allen Sam­my says his en­ti­ty can’t do cer­tain op­er­a­tions.

This af­ter the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing that the one-year ex­ten­sion of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term be­yond De­cem­ber 2022 was un­law­ful. The orig­i­nal dead­line for end of the term was March 31, 2023.

The Op­po­si­tion has since asked if salaries of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men were law­ful af­ter the March dead­line, if they’d have to re­pay it, if their de­ci­sions were le­gal af­ter March 31 and if the Gov­ern­ment would have to re­turn to Par­lia­ment to val­i­date all of this.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour said Thurs­day he’s seek­ing ad­vice on the judg­ment for the Cab­i­net.

Yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Lennox Sankers­ingh, who was part of the na­tion­al team on the LG re­form law, said if coun­cil­lors’ pay­ments and oth­er as­pects be­came an is­sue, it could be eas­i­ly re­solved via pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion. Sankers­ingh, a long­stand­ing LG prac­ti­tion­er, al­so com­ment­ed on the ef­fects of the judg­ment on the LG re­form law.

Yes­ter­day Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo wrote Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi seek­ing guid­ance based on the judg­ment.

Mayrhoo said, “I’m not sure I can legal­ly rep­re­sent my burgess­es for which I was elect­ed. It is clear the Gov­ern­ment had not giv­en a clear di­rec­tive whether coun­cil­lors and al­der­men should con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent their elec­toral dis­tricts and var­i­ous coun­cils.”

Al-Rawi didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day

Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez said the judg­ment was on­ly giv­en on Thurs­day and he’d heard the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al say he was seek­ing ad­vice from se­nior coun­sel on the mat­ter.

“So, I’m await­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion be­fore we make any de­ci­sions,” Mar­tinez said.

Mar­tinez said years ago when the Patrick Man­ning gov­ern­ment ex­tend­ed the term, coun­cil­lors re­mained in of­fice, since the mat­ter went to Par­lia­ment to seek the ex­ten­sion. At that time, it wasn’t chal­lenged, but the UNC chal­lenged it on this oc­ca­sion, he not­ed.

Say­ing he was un­aware of any queries, Mar­tinez added, “But all staff are work­ing, we have to cut the grass, get the drains cleaned and garbage col­lect­ed, so we con­tin­ue to work to pro­vide the pop­u­la­tion with ser­vices.”

Pe­nal/Debe cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Sam­my said, “We’re in a state of ‘in be­tween­i­ty’, so we’re un­sure of sev­er­al things un­til we re­ceive min­istry di­rec­tive. The CEO will be li­ais­ing with them to as­cer­tain the sit­u­a­tion. Our coun­cil is wait­ing to be ad­vised if it will be dis­solved and when.”

Sam­my ad­mit­ted that some work­ers had asked if they have to re­turn the salaries they re­ceived since March. Al­so in the sit­u­a­tion, he added that the pro­cure­ment of big items is out, but he was more con­cerned about the de­lay of pro­cure­ment of small goods and ser­vices—in­clud­ing 10-day con­tracts.

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Anil Juter­am said the cor­po­ra­tion is func­tion­ing but had no word of queries about the sit­u­a­tion. He said word was be­ing await­ed on from the min­istry, as did Tu­na­puna chair­man Kwe­si Robin­son.

San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials said op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue though some were won­der­ing when the sit­u­a­tion af­ter March 31 would be reg­u­larised.

Salaries shouldn’t be an is­sue

At­tor­ney Lennox Sankers­ingh said the mat­ters of coun­cil­lors’ salaries shouldn’t be­come an is­sue, though the Op­po­si­tion may try to make it one. How­ev­er, he said this re­al­ly isn’t pos­i­tive for the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly as things were bad.

Sankers­ingh said sup­port was need­ed for good mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment, “and they should try to put their best foot for­ward for na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

He said the is­sue of salaries and op­er­a­tions since March 31 may not be an is­sue, since those in LG of­fice were op­er­at­ing based on ac­tions tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment, which Gov­ern­ment thought to be law­ful.

Sankers­ingh said the Privy Coun­cil judg­ment gave the LG re­form process a “knock­out punch.” He felt there were sev­er­al sce­nar­ios on how LG elec­tions may have to be held, in­clud­ing whether un­der the three-year term sys­tem or oth­er­wise, but was await­ing word.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern over whether those who’d rep­re­sent­ed Gov­ern­ment at the Privy Coun­cil had a pic­ture of the en­tire LG frame­work and that the ex­ten­sion of the term was part of a wider scheme of things and whether that was all pre­sent­ed to the Privy Coun­cil.—Gail Alexan­der