Beckles alleges discrimination, demands criteria for funding cuts

Akash Sama­roo 

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics 

Akash.sama­[email protected] 

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of bla­tant po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion in its al­lo­ca­tion of de­vel­op­ment fund­ing and is de­mand­ing that it pub­lish the cri­te­ria used to de­ter­mine how pub­lic mon­ey is dis­trib­uted.

In a state­ment ti­tled “Kam­la’s At­tack on T&T,” Beck­les yes­ter­day ques­tioned whether re­duc­tions af­fect­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions were based on com­mu­ni­ties’ de­vel­op­ment needs or po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions.

“If the Gov­ern­ment in­sists that its de­ci­sions are based on de­vel­op­ment needs, ob­jec­tive cri­te­ria and the re­spon­si­ble use of pub­lic mon­ey, then it must pub­lish those cri­te­ria and demon­strate how they were ap­plied,” she said.

Beck­les ar­gued that res­i­dents should not face re­duced ac­cess to in­fra­struc­ture and de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties be­cause of the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion of their lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Her crit­i­cism comes as the 2027 De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Es­ti­mates show that the com­bined al­lo­ca­tion for the sev­en PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions falls from $81.17 mil­lion orig­i­nal­ly pro­vid­ed for fis­cal 2026 to $31.62 mil­lion, a re­duc­tion of $49.55 mil­lion, or 61 per cent.

The sev­en Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions col­lec­tive­ly re­ceive $187.4 mil­lion, com­pared with $190.463 mil­lion orig­i­nal­ly al­lo­cat­ed for fis­cal 2026, rep­re­sent­ing a re­duc­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.6 per cent.

Those fig­ures cov­er cor­po­ra­tion-spe­cif­ic de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes un­der the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. They ex­clude re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture and projects fi­nanced sep­a­rate­ly through oth­er min­istries or pro­grammes.

Beck­les used a longer com­par­i­son in her state­ment, say­ing the PNM cor­po­ra­tions’ com­bined de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tions had fall­en from $129.3 mil­lion in fis­cal 2025 to $31.62 mil­lion for fis­cal 2027. She cal­cu­lat­ed that re­duc­tion at $97.68 mil­lion, or ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75.6 per cent, and high­light­ed Ari­ma, whose al­lo­ca­tion she said de­clined from $18.25 mil­lion in 2025 to $2.5 mil­lion in 2027.

Beck­les said the re­duc­tions re­quired a clear ex­pla­na­tion of their im­pli­ca­tions for roads, schools, hous­ing and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty in­fra­struc­ture.

She al­so crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as de­clin­ing in­vest­ment in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, cit­ing a re­duc­tion in the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme from $6.2 bil­lion in 2024 to $4.1 bil­lion in the 2026 al­lo­ca­tion.

Hous­ing fund­ing, she said, had fall­en from $1.285 bil­lion in 2024 to $637 mil­lion in 2026.

“At a time when fam­i­lies are wait­ing for homes and com­mu­ni­ties are de­mand­ing bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture, the Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain the im­pli­ca­tions of these re­duc­tions and how it in­tends to meet the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment needs,” she said.

Beck­les fur­ther linked her con­cerns to the Gov­ern­ment’s mu­nic­i­pal bound­ary changes, al­leg­ing that com­mu­ni­ties were be­ing moved in­to new mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties through ger­ry­man­der­ing.

She ques­tioned whether those ar­eas would re­ceive more favourable treat­ment un­der the new arrange­ments and called for safe­guards against po­lit­i­cal­ly in­flu­enced fund­ing de­ci­sions.

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks about tax­pay­ers sup­port­ing “in­dis­ci­plined lazy per­sons,” ar­gu­ing that res­i­dents should not bear the con­se­quences of re­duced com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment.

The ex­pen­di­ture es­ti­mates es­tab­lish dif­fer­ences in al­lo­ca­tions but do not ex­plain the rea­sons for them or es­tab­lish po­lit­i­cal mo­tive.

Beck­les main­tained that the pub­lic was en­ti­tled to know why fund­ing had been re­duced and how Gov­ern­ment would en­sure fair dis­tri­b­u­tion.

“The dis­par­i­ty de­mands a clear and cred­i­ble ex­pla­na­tion. The pub­lic must not be ex­pect­ed to ac­cept these de­ci­sions with­out an­swers,” she said.