Ameen insists: Pay debts before hosting events

Khadi­jah Ameen is main­tain­ing mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions must set­tle debts be­fore host­ing events, as the chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion re­jects her po­si­tion as “false and mis­lead­ing”.

The Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter said her guid­ance has been con­sis­tent — cor­po­ra­tions should not stage events while ow­ing con­trac­tors or car­ry­ing un­paid oblig­a­tions.

She said the po­si­tion ap­plies to all mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and is not aimed at any sin­gle body, but re­flects a broad­er push for fi­nan­cial dis­ci­pline.

Ameen said cor­po­ra­tions are ex­pect­ed to set­tle oblig­a­tions be­fore seek­ing or us­ing funds for events, with pri­or­i­ty placed on es­sen­tial ser­vices and the man­age­ment of pub­lic re­sources.

She said there is no need for any chair­man to pub­licly de­fend their po­si­tion, de­scrib­ing her com­ments as a call for cor­rec­tive ac­tion giv­en the fi­nan­cial state of cor­po­ra­tions.

The Min­istry said long­stand­ing is­sues re­main with­in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem, in­clud­ing un­der­fund­ing, weak fi­nan­cial prac­tices and lim­it­ed over­sight, which have con­tributed to ac­cu­mu­lat­ed debt and de­lays in con­trac­tor pay­ments in­her­it­ed from the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In that con­text, Ameen said the Min­istry is in­sist­ing on stronger fi­nan­cial dis­ci­pline across all cor­po­ra­tions.

She said the core re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions re­mains the de­liv­ery of es­sen­tial ser­vices, in­clud­ing road re­pairs, in­fra­struc­ture and ba­sic ser­vices, which must take pri­or­i­ty.

While cul­tur­al pro­grammes re­main part of com­mu­ni­ty life, Ameen said they can­not take prece­dence over es­sen­tial ser­vices or un­paid oblig­a­tions.

TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin said un­paid con­trac­tor bal­ances, par­tic­u­lar­ly for scav­eng­ing ser­vices, stem from in­suf­fi­cient al­lo­ca­tions from cen­tral gov­ern­ment rather than mis­man­age­ment.