Mayors, chairmen decry budget cuts to PNM-controlled corporations

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has pledged to join trade unions in their planned Oc­to­ber 30 protest against the Gov­ern­ment, claim­ing work­ers, fam­i­lies and res­i­dents in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties are be­ing sub­ject­ed to po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion.

His com­ments came af­ter may­ors and chair­men of PNM-con­trolled re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions learned through the 2027 Bud­get doc­u­ments that al­lo­ca­tions to their mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties had been re­duced by a com­bined $49.55 mil­lion.

Speak­ing at Port-of-Spain City Hall yes­ter­day, where PNM may­ors and cor­po­ra­tion chair­men gath­ered to dis­cuss the is­sue, Al­leyne ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly re­duc­ing fund­ing to op­po­si­tion-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties while ig­nor­ing con­cerns af­fect­ing res­i­dents across po­lit­i­cal lines.

“We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those that are fac­ing vic­tim­i­sa­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion at the hand of the Gov­ern­ment. I will find my­self in the streets sup­port­ing the cause of the unions as they take to the streets,” Al­leyne said.

He ar­gued that the cuts formed part of a broad­er strat­e­gy aimed at in­flu­enc­ing the out­come of the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

“All of this is part of them un­furl­ing a most hideous and grotesque elec­tion strat­e­gy where they will choose vic­tim­i­sa­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion to vis­it that on­to the pop­u­la­tion to cause peo­ple not to want to come out and vote,” he said.

Al­leyne al­so raised con­cerns about the im­pact of the re­cent­ly en­act­ed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act on elec­tion cam­paign­ing and vot­er ac­cess. He ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion con­tains no spe­cif­ic ex­emp­tions for elec­tions or po­lit­i­cal can­vass­ing.

“There is no carve-out in the act, in the leg­is­la­tion, no carve-out for elec­tions, no carve-out for in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates or any can­di­date that wants to walk a com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

He ques­tioned how res­i­dents would ac­cess polling sta­tions if closed-area bound­aries di­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ties, ask­ing, “How are you go­ing to be able to go and vote?”

The leg­is­la­tion re­quires per­mits to en­ter or leave des­ig­nat­ed closed ar­eas and con­tains no ex­press gen­er­al ex­emp­tion for elec­tion ac­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, it ex­empts cer­tain of­fice­hold­ers, in­clud­ing MPs and mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil­lors, and al­lows the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to is­sue per­mits to cat­e­gories of per­sons. Re­stric­tions re­quir­ing peo­ple to re­main in­doors arise un­der sep­a­rate cur­few or­ders.

“Cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, pay very close at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing,” Al­leyne urged.

Mean­while, Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of tar­get­ing res­i­dents of PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions by re­duc­ing de­vel­op­ment fund­ing and de­lay­ing con­fir­ma­tion of al­lo­ca­tions.

“The UNC is not sim­ply wag­ing a war against PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions. They are wag­ing a war against the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who hap­pen to live in PNM-run cor­po­ra­tions,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s draft de­vel­op­ment es­ti­mates, Diego Mar­tin’s pro­posed al­lo­ca­tion has been re­duced to $2.22 mil­lion from $11.1 mil­lion in 2026, rep­re­sent­ing an 80 per cent de­crease. By com­par­i­son, Ch­agua­nas is al­lo­cat­ed $37.9 mil­lion, mar­gin­al­ly be­low its orig­i­nal 2026 al­lo­ca­tion of $37.96 mil­lion. These fig­ures re­late specif­i­cal­ly to de­vel­op­ment projects and not the cor­po­ra­tions’ over­all op­er­at­ing bud­gets.

Glas­gow-Warn­er ques­tioned the cri­te­ria used to de­ter­mine al­lo­ca­tions, cit­ing Diego Mar­tin’s larg­er pop­u­la­tion and greater num­ber of elec­toral dis­tricts.

“We have more dis­tricts than them. We have more peo­ple to ser­vice,” she said.

She said fac­tors such as pop­u­la­tion size, in­fra­struc­ture needs, drainage re­quire­ments and road con­di­tions should have been con­sid­ered.

“How can the UNC jus­ti­fy that? What cri­te­ria were used?” she asked.

Re­ject­ing claims that pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions had dis­ad­van­taged UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions, Glas­gow-Warn­er said all 14 lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies re­ceived be­tween $17 mil­lion and $20 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment fund­ing un­der the PNM’s fi­nal fis­cal 2025 bud­get.

She fur­ther chal­lenged me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ex­am­ine how much of Ch­agua­nas’ pre­vi­ous al­lo­ca­tion had ac­tu­al­ly been utilised, al­leg­ing that on­ly about half was spent.

How­ev­er, the draft es­ti­mates show Ch­agua­nas’ re­vised 2026 de­vel­op­ment ex­pen­di­ture at $34.96 mil­lion com­pared with its orig­i­nal al­lo­ca­tion of $37.96 mil­lion. The re­vised es­ti­mate does not rep­re­sent an au­dit­ed ex­pen­di­ture fig­ure and does not con­clu­sive­ly show how much fund­ing was ul­ti­mate­ly spent.