On the home stretch to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions (LGE), with just over a week to Au­gust 14, there is very lit­tle that vot­ers can glean from the var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns to make in­formed choic­es.

On­ly pass­ing men­tion has been made of any­thing to do with the op­er­a­tions of the re­gion­al mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties or the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence of the 373 can­di­dates vy­ing for full-time po­si­tions with­in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem.

Al­though a gen­er­al elec­tion is still about two years away, the main talk­ing points on plat­forms are about the achieve­ments or fail­ures of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment rather than lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

With not much time left, the par­ties should im­me­di­ate­ly get on track with more rel­e­vant is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause there are wide­ly held ex­pec­ta­tions that the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Bill, which was passed with­out amend­ments and as­sent­ed to over a year ago, will come in­to full op­er­a­tion soon af­ter the polls.

While the Op­po­si­tion ab­stained from vot­ing, their suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will have to op­er­ate in the re­formed sys­tem ex­pect­ed to come in­to force af­ter the LGE. They are ex­pect­ed to con­trol mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties un­der a new struc­ture where they will have more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and au­thor­i­ty, free of the red tape and bu­reau­cra­cy that ham­pers the cur­rent sys­tem.

Even if op­po­si­tion par­ties con­test­ing the LGE are not in sup­port of the PNM’s re­form pro­gramme, they should all be com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life of burgess­es whose votes they hope to win.

That is why it is time to shift from the usu­al po­lit­i­cal sabre rat­tling and get down to se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions about the de­liv­ery of ser­vices and ameni­ties to more ef­fec­tive­ly meet cit­i­zens' needs and ex­pec­ta­tions.

In ad­di­tion, more needs to be heard from the 373 can­di­dates vy­ing for some weighty ad­min­is­tra­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Un­der the re­formed sys­tem, sev­er­al tasks and func­tions now man­aged by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment will be han­dled by lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies. They will take on greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for col­lect­ing and al­lo­cat­ing funds to de­liv­er goods and ser­vices to the pub­lic and will no longer have the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment as the con­duit through which they re­ceive bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions.

Al­though crime is a ma­jor UNC plat­form is­sue, their fo­cus on stand your ground laws is some­what mis­placed. At the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el, the dis­cus­sion needs to be about in­creased man­pow­er for the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and ex­pan­sion of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The role of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice at a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el and col­lab­o­ra­tions with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to tack­le rob­bery, gang vi­o­lence, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and oth­er crimes needs to be ful­ly aired on the cam­paign trail.

Al­so, with cli­mate change a re­al and grow­ing con­cern, vot­ers need to hear more about the ex­pand­ed scope of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units (DMU) op­er­at­ing in the var­i­ous mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. Is­sues of staffing and equip­ment should be dis­cussed now, giv­ing burgess­es some ideas of the plans for ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tions by these units in times of dis­as­ter.

And these are just a few of the is­sues of great im­por­tance that have, un­for­tu­nate­ly, been swept aside by par­ty of­fi­cials and can­di­dates who have be­come caught up in one po­lit­i­cal bac­cha­nal af­ter an­oth­er.

Too much time is be­ing wast­ed on mud­sling­ing. It is time to put lo­cal gov­ern­ment back in­to the LGE cam­paign.