Ken Ali

De­spite warn­ings to his po­lit­i­cal faith­ful to "sharp­en your po­lit­i­cal cut­lass­es," Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is again putting off the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. If Man­ning suc­ceeds with a leg­isla­tive mea­sure due to be de­bat­ed to­mor­row, coun­cil­lors elect­ed in 2003 will serve un­til 2010, the longest term in Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­to­ry. It is a sit­u­a­tion that has aroused Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day so much, that he is due to fire off the re­sponse to­mor­row to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill 2009.

It would be on­ly Pan­day's sec­ond con­tri­bu­tion to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that was as­sem­bled in De­cem­ber, 2007. Pan­day was busy yes­ter­day, work­ing on his re­ply, and voiced mis­giv­ings, both on the pro­posed post­pone­ment of the lo­cal polls and the much bal­ly­hooed re­form of the mu­nic­i­pal sec­tor. Still, he de­clined to state whether the 15-mem­ber Op­po­si­tion would vote against the bill, as­sert­ing: "We are not go­ing there with closed minds."

The Gov­ern­ment is ad­vo­cat­ing ex­tend­ing the life of cur­rent LG cor­po­ra­tions in or­der to com­plete an ex­haus­tive re­form ex­er­cise, an up­date of which is list­ed in a draft White Pa­per on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form, laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Bill 2009 is due to be de­bat­ed in the House to­mor­row, and there is spec­u­la­tion that the Gov­ern­ment would opt for a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee to re­view the pro­pos­als. The com­mit­tee's re­port would then be a fore­run­ner to the stag­ing of the lo­cal elec­tion. To­mor­row's sit­ting is sched­uled to be­gin at 1.30 pm.

'Politi­cis­ing the sys­tem'

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers and oth­er em­ploy­ees of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions are to be ap­point­ed on con­tract, ac­cord­ing to the planned leg­is­la­tion. They would be ap­point­ed by the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, sub­ject to the ap­proval of the min­is­ter. This, ac­cord­ing to May­or of Ch­agua­nas Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan, is "a dan­ger­ous step." Ram­lo­gan, who had rep­re­sent­ed San Fer­nan­do CEO Mar­lene Coudray amid an at­tempt to sum­mar­i­ly trans­fer her, said the pro­posed mea­sure "politi­cis­es the sys­tem."

The plan is in­di­cat­ed in Clause 60 (1) of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Bill 2009, which was pre­sent­ed and read for the first time in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Fri­day by Min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning. The Bill states that the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary "shall, with the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter, ap­point a Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer on con­tract for each cor­po­ra­tion."

Clause 63 spells out a sim­i­lar pro­ce­dure with re­spect to the ap­point­ment of le­gal of­fi­cers, ac­coun­tants, en­gi­neers, pub­lic health of­fi­cers and em­ploy­ees "as may be re­quired for the ef­fi­cient dis­charge of the du­ties of the cor­po­ra­tion pro­vid­ed that the es­tab­lish­ment of a cor­po­ra­tion shall be sub­ject to the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter."

Clause 64 states that "the em­ploy­ment of per­sons on con­tract are sub­ject to the guide­lines pre­scribed by the gov­ern­ment in re­spect of the em­ploy­ment of per­sons on con­tract." Ram­bachan queried whether the hir­ing of con­tract work­ers would mean the dis­missal of ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ees, as hap­pened some years ago with the in­tro­duc­tion of the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties.

He won­dered aloud whether there would be mass re­trench­ment. There are al­so ques­tions about the line of re­port­ing func­tion of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers. The planned leg­is­la­tion makes no pro­vi­sions for the em­ploy­ment of work­ers to un­der­take du­ties rel­e­vant to drains and roads. Un­der the new plan, may­ors, their deputies and sec­re­taries would be de­barred from hold­ing oth­er mon­ey-earn­ing jobs.