Mick­ela Pan­day

Trinidad and To­ba­go has heard promis­es of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form for decades. Yet res­i­dents still judge it by over­flow­ing, blocked drains, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads, un­col­lect­ed garbage and ba­sic prob­lems that go unan­swered.

That is the test the Gov­ern­ment must meet with the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill. Not whether it can re­draw a map, cre­ate new bor­oughs or con­fer city sta­tus, but whether those changes im­prove peo­ple’s lives.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed the Bill as a re­sponse to long­stand­ing in­equal­i­ties in rep­re­sen­ta­tion and re­source dis­tri­b­u­tion. Cit­ing the 2025 De­vel­op­ment Es­ti­mates, she ar­gued that some larg­er cor­po­ra­tions serv­ing more peo­ple re­ceived less fund­ing than small­er ones. Ac­cess to ser­vices should not de­pend on where a per­son lives or which par­ty con­trols a cor­po­ra­tion.

But iden­ti­fy­ing an in­equal­i­ty is on­ly the be­gin­ning. The Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain how its changes will cor­rect it.

Dur­ing the de­bate, the Prime Min­is­ter said fund­ing and re­source-al­lo­ca­tion arrange­ments would be dealt with af­ter the Bill was passed. She al­so as­sured the House that Prop­er­ty Tax would not fund the changes. Yet if un­equal fund­ing is cen­tral to the case for re­struc­tur­ing, why is the frame­work for fair­er al­lo­ca­tions not be­ing pre­sent­ed along­side the Bill?

How will fund­ing be cal­cu­lat­ed? Will a trans­par­ent for­mu­la ac­count for pop­u­la­tion, ge­og­ra­phy and in­fra­struc­ture needs? What will the new struc­tures cost? What ad­di­tion­al pow­ers will lo­cal au­thor­i­ties re­ceive to solve prob­lems with­out wait­ing on cen­tral gov­ern­ment?

These are not mi­nor ad­min­is­tra­tive de­tails. They are the sub­stance of re­form. Cre­at­ing more en­ti­ties with­out ex­plain­ing how they will be fund­ed and em­pow­ered risks pro­duc­ing a larg­er struc­ture with­out stronger lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

The PNM had years in of­fice to ad­vance lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form, yet im­ple­men­ta­tion of its 2022 leg­is­la­tion was de­layed. The pub­lic de­serves an ex­pla­na­tion for that record. The PNM should an­swer for its fail­ures, but those fail­ures do not re­lieve the present Gov­ern­ment of its du­ty to ex­plain its own pro­pos­als.

The con­cerns ex­tend be­yond fund­ing. The way the Bill was han­dled in Par­lia­ment al­so de­serves scruti­ny.

At the Com­mit­tee Stage, the Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced an amend­ment to re­vise four polic­ing-dis­trict de­scrip­tions un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act to re­flect the pro­posed mu­nic­i­pal changes. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said the de­scrip­tions need­ed up­dat­ing be­cause the Act had come in­to force and the Bill would change mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries.

That may ex­plain the ad­min­is­tra­tive ra­tio­nale, but it does not re­move the need for scruti­ny. Why was this con­se­quen­tial amend­ment in­tro­duced at that stage, af­ter the main de­bate? Were its im­pli­ca­tions ful­ly ex­plained and ex­am­ined? When leg­is­la­tion con­nects mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries with polic­ing dis­tricts, the pub­lic is en­ti­tled to un­der­stand pre­cise­ly what is chang­ing and why.

With lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions ap­proach­ing, the ques­tion of ger­ry­man­der­ing can­not sim­ply be dis­missed. When a Gov­ern­ment re­draws mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, the pub­lic has every right to ask whether those changes serve ad­min­is­tra­tive ne­ces­si­ty or po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage.

Bound­ary changes are not mere­ly lines on a map. They de­ter­mine which com­mu­ni­ties are grouped to­geth­er, how vot­ers are dis­trib­uted among dis­tricts and the elec­toral con­di­tions can­di­dates face. Those con­se­quences make the process as im­por­tant as the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed pur­pose.

The Prime Min­is­ter has re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions of ger­ry­man­der­ing. But a de­nial alone can­not set­tle the mat­ter. The Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain the cri­te­ria used to de­ter­mine the new bound­aries, demon­strate that they were ap­plied con­sis­tent­ly and pro­vide ev­i­dence that the changes serve a le­git­i­mate pub­lic pur­pose. The pub­lic de­serves to know who stands to ben­e­fit and why.

The Bill al­so pro­vides for a coun­cil­lor or al­der­man to lose of­fice af­ter re­sign­ing from or be­ing ex­pelled by the par­ty un­der which that per­son was elect­ed or ap­point­ed. The ar­gu­ment that rep­re­sen­ta­tives should ho­n­our the man­date on which they en­tered of­fice de­serves con­sid­er­a­tion. But it rais­es a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: should a par­ty lead­er­ship be able to trig­ger the loss of an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s seat through ex­pul­sion? What safe­guards ex­ist against ar­bi­trary or po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed de­ci­sions? Is there an in­de­pen­dent process for re­view­ing a dis­put­ed de­ci­sion?

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment must be ac­count­able to vot­ers, not sim­ply to par­ty head­quar­ters. Any pro­vi­sion that can re­move an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive from of­fice must be ex­am­ined for fair­ness as well as po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience.

A new map is not bet­ter gov­ern­ment. Re­form must be mea­sured in ser­vices de­liv­ered, trans­par­ent fund­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

With the na­tion­al Bud­get due, the same test ap­plies to the Gov­ern­ment’s wider record. An­nounce­ments are not out­comes. Cit­i­zens need to know what they will re­ceive and how per­for­mance will be mea­sured.

The PNM must an­swer for the re­forms it failed to de­liv­er. The UNC Gov­ern­ment must an­swer for the sys­tem it is now cre­at­ing. Nei­ther par­ty should be al­lowed to hide be­hind the fail­ures of the oth­er while com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to wait for ba­sic ser­vices.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form must mean more than new bound­aries, new ti­tles and new promis­es. It must mean that peo­ple have the re­sources, au­thor­i­ty and rep­re­sen­ta­tion to de­mand bet­ter and the pow­er to hold those re­spon­si­ble to ac­count. If the Gov­ern­ment can­not demon­strate that these changes will de­liv­er bet­ter ser­vices and stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty, it has re­drawn the bound­aries with­out de­liv­er­ing the re­form.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law