Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein said he has no part to play in the al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources to re­gion­al Corps. His re­sponse came af­ter claims of an “ur­ban bias” in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources to UNC-led Corps. But he as­sured cit­i­zens that there will be a more eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources once lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form comes on stream.

In an in­ter­view, Ho­sein said he was not in charge of re­source al­lo­ca­tion and so he could not com­ment on claims by the Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that UNC-led Corps were get­ting far few­er re­sources than PNM Corps.

He ex­plained that each Corp puts out their bud­get re­quests which are then sent to the Min­istry of Fi­nance. Asked on what grounds re­sources were al­lo­cat­ed, Ho­sein said he did not know as this was not un­der his purview.

“You need to speak to the Fi­nance Min­istry to find out the cri­te­ria for re­source dis­tri­b­u­tion. We don’t have a say in that,” he added.

He not­ed, “Once the lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form comes in Corps will have to col­lect their own tax­es and they will have di­rect con­tact with the Min­istry of Fi­nance. That is­sue will re­solve it­self when the re­form comes in so the Corps can ne­go­ti­ate for what it wants.”

Over the past week, the UNC-led Siparia and Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Corp chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh and Dr Allen Sam­my com­plained that they were un­able to ser­vice the ar­eas be­cause of lim­it­ed funds. Is­sues of garbage col­lec­tion and wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion have been com­pro­mised in sev­er­al ar­eas. Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the Corp has re­ceived on­ly one-twelfth of its fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment be­cause of un­time­ly re­leas­es from the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“We have no mon­ey to pur­chase prop­er san­i­ta­tion gear and our work­ers are re­fus­ing to go in and do the work. This has caused an in­fes­ta­tion of rats, mos­qui­toes and pests,” Ra­mad­hars­ingh said.

“ How can that be ac­cept­able? This is not de­vel­op­ment, it is rur­al ne­glect.”

Sam­my al­so said his Corp was al­lo­cat­ed $82 mil­li­on bud­get for fis­cal 2019 and $67 mil­li­on was ap­pro­pri­at­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture such as salaries, rent and main­te­nance while $13.9 mil­li­on was for its de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes such as drainage projects, ve­hi­cle pur­chas­es and road re­pairs. He not­ed that the Corp can­not af­ford to pay T&TEC and WASA the $2.1 mil­li­on it owes for sup­plies to its fa­cil­i­ties, $19,000 for ve­hi­cle main­te­nance and $43,000 to ex­ter­nal wa­ter sup­pli­ers among oth­ers.

FIS­CAL 2019 Es­ti­mates

Lo­ca­tion Pop­u­la­tion Size Al­lo­ca­tion

Port-of-Spain City Corp 37,999 223,972,000

San Fer­nan­do City Corp 50,429 130,950,900

Ari­ma Bor­ough Corp 29,073 78,262,800

Point Fortin Bor­ough Corp 16,874 63,430,600

Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Corp 67,055 79,442,800

Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Corp 88,151 100, 879,200

San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Corp 135,840 169,175,500

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Corp 174,647 179,060,800

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Corp 57,105 80,715,800

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­poro Re­gion­al Corp 147,438 111,892,000

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Corp 29,511 82,041,100

Siparia Re­gion­al Corp 71,802 75,668,800

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Corp 76,427 64,700,700

Princes Town Re­gion­al Corp 81,420 83,261,900

TO­TAL 1,422,575,700

- SOURCE Draft Es­ti­mates of Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture 2019, Pg. 260