Ameen defends Municipal Boundaries Committee chair

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

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Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen has again pushed back against what she de­scribed as “mis­chie­vous com­ments” by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les over the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish a com­mit­tee to re­view the bound­aries of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions in Trinidad.

She was speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Thurs­day.

Ameen re­ject­ed Beck­les’ claims as mis­lead­ing, say­ing they re­flect a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of the par­lia­men­tary process, the scope of leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment and the role of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

“I want to make it very clear that the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee to re­view the bound­aries of mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties is not a UNC com­mit­tee. It is al­so not chaired by any min­is­ter. It is a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee led by a re­tired and very com­pe­tent for­mer pub­lic ser­vant, the for­mer di­rec­tor of plan­ning at the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and a for­mer act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry of the then lo­cal gov­ern­ment.”

She strong­ly de­fend­ed the chair of the com­mit­tee, stress­ing that the re­view process is tech­no­crat­ic, not po­lit­i­cal.

“The chair­per­son of this com­mit­tee is a tech­no­crat with decades of pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and a per­son who does not have any po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. So this is not a po­lit­i­cal com­mit­tee in any way. And I think it is re­al­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble for the leader of the Op­po­si­tion to sug­gest oth­er­wise and to present what is a tech­no­crat­ic re­view process as some­thing par­ti­san. It is not. And I think such state­ments re­al­ly un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence, but it dis­torts facts.”

On No­vem­ber 28, 2025, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment had been is­sued to the com­mit­tee for the Re­view of Mu­nic­i­pal Bound­aries in Trinidad.

The com­mit­tee is chaired by Stara Ram­lo­gan and in­cludes mem­bers Fer­oz Khan, Sab­ri­na Mowlah Baksh, Christlyn Moore, Dr As­sad Mo­hammed, Dr Allen Sam­my, Vi­jay Gosyne, Cor­nelius Price, Lennox Sankers­ingh, Pe­ter Kan­hai and Den­ish Sankers­ingh.

Ameen said the bound­aries of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions are de­ter­mined by an Act of Par­lia­ment, re­call­ing that leg­is­la­tion passed in 1990, and sub­se­quent­ly amend­ed, re­placed coun­ty coun­cils with mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. She said this frame­work clear­ly dis­tin­guish­es be­tween mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, which fall un­der Par­lia­ment, and elec­toral bound­aries, which are the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

“So, there is no ques­tion about the va­lid­i­ty of such a com­mit­tee. And I want to tell you, the com­mit­tee is not mak­ing the changes. The com­mit­tee will look at the da­ta, they will look at growth polls, and they will look at con­cen­tra­tions in terms of not just pop­u­la­tion but ameni­ties. They will look at ar­eas that have com­mer­cial cen­tres and schools and a con­cen­tra­tion of oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, and they will analyse and make rec­om­men­da­tions. It is up to the Cab­i­net and then the Par­lia­ment to ac­cept these rec­om­men­da­tions.”

She added that the re­struc­tur­ing and re­siz­ing of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions has been un­der dis­cus­sion for decades, and is not a new or par­ti­san is­sue.

Ameen re­called that se­nior PNM fig­ures had pre­vi­ous­ly gone on record ar­gu­ing that Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, with a pop­u­la­tion near­ing a quar­ter of a mil­lion peo­ple, should be di­vid­ed in­to a Tu­na­puna bor­ough and a Pi­ar­co re­gion.

She al­so point­ed to changes made un­der a pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, when the Diego Mar­tin and Siparia re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions were re­des­ig­nat­ed as bor­oughs.

“That is not the cre­ation of a bor­ough. A bor­ough re­al­ly has to be a cen­tralised area of com­mer­cial and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ty, a de­vel­op­men­tal fo­cus of the gov­ern­ment and of the lo­cal au­thor­i­ty. So the PNM would have failed in terms of the true cre­ation of a bor­ough. And what we are do­ing now will al­low us to re­view and look at the da­ta and let the com­mit­tee make their rec­om­men­da­tions.”

Ameen said there is now a clear im­bal­ance in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, with some mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties serv­ing pop­u­la­tions as large as 250,000, while oth­ers have as few as 17,000 to 20,000 res­i­dents, cre­at­ing fund­ing and ser­vice de­liv­ery chal­lenges.

“The dis­par­i­ty in fund­ing has al­ways been a hot top­ic,” she said.

She ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of politi­cis­ing an is­sue that re­quires bi­par­ti­san ma­tu­ri­ty.

“You can’t play pol­i­tics with lo­cal gov­ern­ment be­cause lo­cal gov­ern­ment is so close to the ground. Both PNM and UNC per­sons have ad­vo­cat­ed for these changes, and I don’t know if Ms Beck­les con­sult­ed with her mem­bers be­fore she made such a state­ment, but the changes have to be done.”

Ameen said the com­mit­tee has al­ready adopt­ed a struc­tured con­sul­ta­tive ap­proach, en­gag­ing tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers with­in mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, min­istries and oth­er key stake­hold­ers.

She added that op­po­si­tion-led mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions will be part of the con­sul­ta­tion process and will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide in­put.

Beck­les, ear­li­er this week, ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to ger­ry­man­der elec­toral bound­aries ahead of the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

In a state­ment, she de­scribed the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee as a “clear and present threat to democ­ra­cy” and a “thin­ly veiled at­tempt” to in­ter­fere with the elec­toral process.

She ar­gued that the ini­tia­tive en­croach­es on the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­mit of the EBC and warned of po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion de­signed to en­trench the rul­ing par­ty.

Beck­les al­so claimed that a com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by the Cab­i­net and al­leged­ly led by a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter could not cred­i­bly claim neu­tral­i­ty.

“The in­tegri­ty of our elec­toral sys­tem must be de­fend­ed,” Beck­les said.

Ameen re­ject­ed those as­ser­tions out­right, in­sist­ing the re­view is law­ful, long over­due and dri­ven by da­ta rather than pol­i­tics.