PRO­FES­SOR HAMID GHANY

hamid.ghany@sta.uwi.edu

Last Wednes­day, the EBC pub­lished on their web­site the full list of all al­der­men nom­i­nat­ed by all of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion in Trinidad on Mon­day, Au­gust 14. The pub­li­ca­tion of these lists will pro­vide the gen­er­al pub­lic with a lev­el of trans­paren­cy about who their like­ly al­der­men could be in the ar­eas where they re­side.

Be­fore 2013, one would on­ly know who the al­der­men would be when they turned up on the day of swear­ing in coun­cil­lors in each cor­po­ra­tion and de­pend­ing on which par­ty con­trolled those cor­po­ra­tions, the par­ties would de­cide whom they would nom­i­nate as al­der­men.

Since 2013, the EBC de­ter­mines how many al­der­men each par­ty can be al­lo­cat­ed in a cor­po­ra­tion based on the to­tal num­ber of votes they earned in that cor­po­ra­tion and the Hare method for­mu­la is ap­plied to those votes for the EBC to de­ter­mine the al­lo­ca­tions for the par­ties. Af­ter that, the par­ties then ex­tract the names of the per­sons they wish to have ap­point­ed as al­der­men from the lists they filed with the EBC on nom­i­na­tion day.

Just like the coun­cil­lors, these per­sons are en­ti­tled to be con­sid­ered for po­si­tions of may­ors and chair­per­sons of cor­po­ra­tions. That will give them con­sid­er­able ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty over the process of de­ter­min­ing the re­source-al­lo­ca­tion de­ci­sions in each cor­po­ra­tion. Pub­lish­ing their names be­fore the elec­tion is ma­jor shift to­ward trans­paren­cy and pub­lic in­for­ma­tion see­ing that the func­tions of lo­cal gov­ern­ment in Trinidad will be en­hanced un­der the new leg­is­la­tion.

In 2013, the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act (MCA)(Ch 25:04) was amend­ed to per­mit the re­place­ment of the process of nom­i­na­tion of al­der­men in all cor­po­ra­tions with a process of elec­tion us­ing pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. This process start­ed with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions of 2013 and con­tin­ued in 2016 and 2019.

Ac­cord­ing to sec­tion 12A(1) of the MCA as amend­ed in 2013:

“Par­ties field­ing can­di­dates in an elec­tion un­der sec­tion 11 for a Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty or Cor­po­ra­tion shall, at the time of nom­i­na­tion of the can­di­dates for Coun­cil­lors, nom­i­nate can­di­dates for Al­der­men on a list to be known as the ‘List of Al­der­men’.”

This pro­vi­sion was but­tressed by sec­tion 12A(2) as fol­lows:

“The quan­tum of names on the List of Al­der­men to be sub­mit­ted by each par­ty in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion shall be equal to the num­ber of Coun­cil­lors to be elect­ed in each Coun­cil.”

In Act No 11 of 2022 that amend­ed, in­ter alia, the MCA, the fol­low­ing amend­ment was made to the de­f­i­n­i­tion of an Al­der­man in the MCA by sec­tion 3 as fol­lows:

“(d) in sec­tion 12 –

(i) in sub­sec­tion (1), by delet­ing the words ‘Al­der­men shall be per­sons who qual­i­fy to be Coun­cil­lors and who pos­sess’ and sub­sti­tut­ing the words, ‘An Al­der­man shall be a per­son who qual­i­fied to be a Coun­cil­lor and who pos­sess­es’…”

Based on this amend­ment to sec­tion 12 of the MCA, the new read­ing of sec­tion 12 is now:

“12.(1) Save for the re­quire­ment that Coun­cil­lors be res­i­dents or own­ers of prop­er­ty with­in a Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty, an Al­der­man shall be a per­son who qual­i­fied to be a Coun­cil­lor and who pos­sess­es demon­strat­ed knowl­edge, ex­per­tise or ex­pe­ri­ence in pro­fes­sion­al or vo­ca­tion­al oc­cu­pa­tions suit­able to the de­vel­op­ment fo­cus of the Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.”

On an ex­am­i­na­tion of the Lists of Al­der­men pub­lished by the EBC last Wednes­day on their web­site, a cou­ple of is­sues caught the eye. One was the fact that some par­ties were un­able to com­ply with sec­tion 12A(2) of the MCA and did not file com­plete lists of al­der­men in cor­po­ra­tions where they were con­test­ing. Sec­ond­ly, it was ap­par­ent that one par­ty of­fered the names of po­ten­tial al­der­men in more than one cor­po­ra­tion.

In re­spect of those par­ties that did not com­ply with sec­tion 12A(2) by not fil­ing lists of al­der­men equal to the num­ber of seats be­ing con­test­ed in each of those cor­po­ra­tions, the fol­low­ing was ob­served:

1. ↓Ari­ma 7 seats – NTA (7), PNM (7), PEP (6), UNC (7)

2. ↓Ch­agua­nas 8 seats – PNM (8), RFA (8), UNC (8)

3. ↓Diego Mar­tin 10 seats – NTA (10), PNM (10), PEP (8), THC (10), UNC (10)

4. ↓Point Fortin 6 seats – MSJ (6), NTA (6), PNM (6), UNC (4)

5. ↓Port-of-Spain 12 seats – NTA (12), PNM (12), PDP (12), PEP (3), UNC (12)

6. ↓San Fer­nan­do 9 seats – PNM (9), PEP (3), UNC (9)

7. ↓Siparia 9 seats – PNM (9), PEP (5), UNC (9)

8. ↓Ma­yaro/Rio Claro 7 seats – PNM (7), UNC (7)

9. ↓Pe­nal/Debe 10 seats – PNM (10), PEP (8), UNC (10)

10. ↓Princes Town 10 seats – PNM (10), PEP (4), UNC (10)

11. ↓San Juan/Laven­tille 14 seats – NTA (14), PNM (14), PDP (14), PEP (5), UNC (14)

12. ↓San­gre Grande 8 seats – PNM (8), PDP (5), PEP (4), THC (8), UNC (8)

13. ↓Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co 16 seats – NTA (16), PNM (16), PEP (5), THC (16), UNC (16)

14. ↓Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro – PNM (15), RFA (3), UNC (15).

Each cor­po­ra­tion has four al­der­men and they are to be drawn from the lists put up by po­lit­i­cal par­ties and al­lo­cat­ed in ac­cor­dance with pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion us­ing the to­tal votes earned by each par­ty in each cor­po­ra­tion that it has con­test­ed.

It is ap­par­ent that in the cas­es of the PEP in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do (List of 3 Al­der­men in both) and the Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers Al­liance (RFA) in Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro (List of 3 Al­der­men) they will not be able to earn their full en­ti­tle­ment if they were to sweep the polls in those ar­eas.

An­oth­er phe­nom­e­non that has been ob­served is the nom­i­na­tion of per­sons in more than one cor­po­ra­tion on Lists of Al­der­men. This was ob­served in re­spect of the NTA where the fol­low­ing per­sons have been nom­i­nat­ed in the fol­low­ing cor­po­ra­tions:

(i) ↓In­saf Enightoola (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, San Juan/Laven­tille and Port-of-Spain).

(ii) ↓Gary Grif­fith III (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, San Juan/Laven­tille and Ari­ma).

(iii) ↓Garvin Nicholas (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, Diego Mar­tin and Ari­ma)

(iv) ↓T’Shau­na Grif­fith (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(v) ↓Da’Vvian Bain (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(vi) ↓Dirk Barnes (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(vii) ↓Vin­dra Dook­ie (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(vi­ii) ↓Ter­ry Seales (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Port-of-Spain)

(ix) ↓Er­rol Fa­bi­en (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Port-of-Spain)

(x) ↓Ash­ton Ed­wards (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Port-of-Spain)

(xi) ↓En­rique As­soon (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(xii) ↓Bri­an Mitchel (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Diego Mar­tin)

(xi­ii) ↓Ross Rus­sel (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Port-of-Spain)

(xiv) ↓Nicholas Roopchan (Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San Juan/Laven­tille)

(xv) ↓Ghas­san Youseph (Ari­ma and Port-of-Spain)

(xvi) ↓Paul-Daniel Na­hous (Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin)

(xvii) ↓Joseph Lewis (Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin)

(xvi­ii) ↓Dwayne Dy­er (Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin)

(xix) ↓Sam Sal­loum (Ari­ma and Port-of-Spain)

(xx) ↓Waz­im Daniel (Ari­ma and Diego Mar­tin)

It will be in­ter­est­ing to see which al­der­men will be al­lo­cat­ed to which cor­po­ra­tions should the NTA win enough votes to earn al­der­men in the cor­po­ra­tions where they are con­test­ing.