The Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion joined the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Rio Claro Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion when it lament­ed its in­abil­i­ty to car­ry out its man­date to their burgess­es.

With 40 per cent of res­i­dents liv­ing in the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion lo­cat­ed in the Oropouche Basin, the cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil said it is brac­ing for an­oth­er year of heavy flood­ing as it is be­ing starved of funds to car­ry out its op­er­a­tions.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fice in Debe yes­ter­day, chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said that of the $82 mil­lion bud­get for fis­cal 2019, $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. Sam­my said the cor­po­ra­tion on­ly re­ceived 54 per cent of the re­leas­es tar­get­ed for de­vel­op­ment projects and 77 per cent of its al­lo­ca­tion for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture to date. With the fis­cal term com­ing to an end in Sep­tem­ber, he said the Min­istry of Fi­nance does not re­lease funds in the months of the bud­get. He said the cor­po­ra­tion, which is des­per­ate for funds, 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.

“Ba­sic things like garbage col­lec­tion, spray­ing, rat bait­ing, clean­ing of drains, wa­ter­course and so on. There is a tremen­dous in­abil­i­ty to de­liv­er on these ba­sic goods and ser­vices be­cause we are be­ing starved of funds,” Sam­my said.

On­ly on Tues­day evening, dur­ing the UNC’s meet­ing held at Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary School po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was an ur­ban bias in re­source dis­tri­b­u­tion.

“Cor­po­ra­tions be­ing starved for re­sources and un­der this Gov­ern­ment...there has been de­lib­er­ate star­va­tion of Op­po­si­tion con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions of funds,” she said.

The sit­u­a­tion is so bad that in Sep­tem­ber 2018, some lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lors were evict­ed from their of­fices be­cause they could not pay their rent,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“The chair­men of four re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions un­der the UNC said de­lays by the Min­istry of Fi­nance in re­leas­ing re­cur­ring ex­pen­di­ture to re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions over the past fi­nan­cial year is ham­per­ing the op­er­a­tions of sev­er­al re­gion­als bod­ies since they are un­able to pay for goods and ser­vices or car­ry out projects,” she added.

At its news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day the cor­po­ra­tion said in June, it re­quest­ed $199,992 to pro­cure mu­nic­i­pal po­lice equip­ment, $290,679 for dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and $539,985 for may­or ve­hi­cle and equip­ment. In March, it re­quest­ed $367,000 for the de­vel­op­ment of Scott’s Road Recre­ation Ground and Bhups­ingh Park; Feb­ru­ary, $500,0000 for the de­vel­op­ment of ceme­ter­ies and cre­ma­tion fa­cil­i­ties; in Jan­u­ary, $270,000 to com­plete the Pe­nal Fish Mar­ket Ven­dor Fa­cil­i­ty; in De­cem­ber 2018, $499,806 for its lo­cal gov­ern­ment build­ing pro­gramme and $299,996 for con­struc­tion of pub­lic con­ve­niences. Sam­my said funds for these items are still out­stand­ing.

For the past two years, the re­gion has suf­fered from se­vere flood­ing dur­ing the dry sea­son with hun­dreds of res­i­dents suf­fer­ing loss­es.

Pe­nal Coun­cil­lor Shan­ti Boodram said al­though the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port cleared some wa­ter­cours­es, there are much more out­stand­ing. She said that floods have al­ready be­gun and res­i­dents strug­gle to clean be­cause of dry taps. Mean­while, she said pot­holes con­tin­ue to fill the roads.

Coun­cil­lor Bri­an Ju­lian said wa­ter from the street flows in­to a Bar­rack­pore woman’s home and con­struc­tion of a box drain is ur­gent. How­ev­er, the PDRC can­not car­ry out the project be­cause there are no funds.

The coun­cil be­lieves that Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led cor­po­ra­tions are be­ing de­nied funds be­cause the Gov­ern­ment wants to cam­paign on the fact that the works were not done in the var­i­ous elec­toral dis­tricts. Al­though some Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led cor­po­ra­tions suf­fer the same is­sues with fund­ing, they said the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port steps in when nec­es­sary.

Sam­my said that when he in­quired from a long-stand­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment work­er about the state of fund­ing for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, he was told it was the worst since the days of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion gov­ern­ment.

When con­tact­ed Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein, re­fused to com­ment about the al­le­ga­tions be­ing made by the cor­po­ra­tions about fund­ing.

Mean­while, while the Op­po­si­tion leader said she wel­comed lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said there were flaws in the bill laid in Par­lia­ment last May.

“When we ex­am­ined the bill, we found a num­ber of is­sues. We be­lieve that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tions must be em­pow­ered, and we agree with mov­ing for­ward with the re­form of lo­cal gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, we be­lieve there must be true re­form of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem,” she said.

Say­ing the bill should not be rushed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bill pro­vides for the in­ser­tion of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to take con­trol of set­ting the re­mu­ner­a­tion of may­ors, al­der­men and coun­cil­lors.

“We do not be­lieve that a politi­cian should be giv­en dis­cre­tionary pow­er to set the salaries of his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. The bill fails to ad­dress the thorny is­sue of equal­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and equal­i­ty of the vote—the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to con­tin­ue a sys­tem which al­lows some coun­cil­lors to rep­re­sent as few as 2,500 vot­ers while re­quir­ing oth­er coun­cil­lors to rep­re­sent more than 12,000 vot­ers” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said there is no pro­vi­sion for a tie-break­er.

(With re­port­ing by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA)