Govt moves to amend Special Operations districts one day after act takes effect

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

New dis­tricts, in­clud­ing sev­er­al pro­posed bor­oughs cre­at­ed un­der the Gov­ern­ment's Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, have been in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (SO) Act through a late amend­ment moved in Par­lia­ment last night.

The Gov­ern­ment added a clause to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, to re­vise the de­scrip­tion of dis­tricts un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, align­ing them with changes pro­posed in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion.

The SO Act, which came in­to force on Wednes­day fol­low­ing pres­i­den­tial as­sent, re­places the failed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion that was de­feat­ed ear­li­er this year.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie in­tro­duced the amend­ment dur­ing the Com­mit­tee Stage of de­bate on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill last night. The leg­is­la­tion seeks to re­struc­ture lo­cal gov­ern­ment in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of new bor­oughs, the re­nam­ing of mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties and ad­just­ments to bound­aries.

Je­re­mie said the amend­ment was nec­es­sary be­cause the bill al­ters the bound­aries of sev­er­al mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, re­names three cor­po­ra­tions and cre­ates four bor­oughs.

"So, the de­scrip­tion of the dis­tricts un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, which came in­to force yes­ter­day, should be changed to align with the pro­pos­als in this bill," Je­re­mie said.

"The four dis­tricts in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act are be­ing delet­ed and sub­sti­tut­ed to ac­cu­rate­ly re­flect and be in sync with the pro­vi­sions of the bill."

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young ques­tioned the tim­ing of the amend­ment.

"Af­ter the full course of the de­bate has closed, hav­ing re­ceived this bill less than 48 hours be­fore the start of the de­bate, now at the com­mit­tee stage, with­out any in­di­ca­tion what­so­ev­er by any speak­er on the Gov­ern­ment side dur­ing al­most 12 hours of de­bate, the first time not on­ly we, but the coun­try, is hear­ing that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to in­sert in­to this bill a sched­ule to deal with the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act," Young said.

He asked whether the amend­ment would es­tab­lish four dis­tricts and as­sign mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to each.

Je­re­mie replied: "Yes. We are amend­ing this sched­ule to in­sert pro­vi­sions re­quired by the pas­sage of the act and the en­act­ment of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion on Wednes­day. So yes, the an­swer to the ques­tion is yes."

The four dis­tricts are:

Dis­trict 1: Port-of-Spain, Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough and the Re­gion­al Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty of San Juan/Laven­tille.

Dis­trict 2: Ari­ma Bor­ough, St Au­gus­tine Bor­ough and the Re­gion­al Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty of Tu­na­puna.

Dis­trict 3: San­gre Grande Bor­ough and the Re­gion­al Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty of Ma­yaro/Rio Claro.

Dis­trict 4: City of Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va Bor­ough and the Re­gion­al Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty of Tabaquite/Tal­paro.

The clause was ap­proved by the Gov­ern­ment's 27 votes, with 12 Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs vot­ing against it.

As the vote was be­ing tak­en, Op­po­si­tion MPs shout­ed, "No to ZOSO."

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh in­struct­ed mem­bers to vote on­ly "Yes" or "No."

When Op­po­si­tion MP Hans Des Vi­gnes again said, "No ZOSO," Singh or­dered him to "take a walk for the rest of the ses­sion."

The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill was even­tu­al­ly passed with 27 Gov­ern­ment votes. The 11 Op­po­si­tion PNM MPs present vot­ed against the leg­is­la­tion.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les crit­i­cised the amend­ment.

"The Gov­ern­ment moved an amend­ment at the Com­mit­tee Stage of the Mu­nic­i­pal Bill to es­tab­lish zones un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act," Gon­za­les said.

"No speak­er on the Gov­ern­ment side made any ref­er­ence to this amend­ment dur­ing their con­tri­bu­tion, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter. By stealth, they moved the amend­ment dur­ing the Com­mit­tee Stage.

"They are dan­ger­ous and de­ceit­ful and do not re­spect Par­lia­ment. They hate ac­count­abil­i­ty and scruti­ny. They are de­ceit­ful and di­a­bol­i­cal."

The House ad­journed un­til Mon­day at 1.30 pm, when the 2027 Bud­get will be pre­sent­ed.