An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment in T&T is a vague and sketchy con­cept, eclipsed by blar­ing mu­sic trucks and much heat­ed talk with­out ei­ther the elec­torate or the can­di­dates ful­ly grasp­ing the true por­tent of the sys­tem, far less un­der­stand­ing its roots.Lo­cal gov­ern­ment in Trinidad be­gins in the 17th cen­tu­ry, when the San­tisi­ma Her­man­dad, which was a qua­si-mu­nic­i­pal body con­sti­tut­ed in the old Span­ish cap­i­tal of St Joseph (San Jose de Oruna), was as­sem­bled from civil­ian ad­min­is­tra­tors and ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal of­fi­cers. This was eclipsed by an­oth­er coun­cil, known as the Il­lus­tri­ous Board of the Ca­bil­do, that was chaired by the gov­er­nor and deputised by two "al­caldes or­di­nar­ios."The ca­bil­do boast­ed ex­ten­sive pow­ers and ex­tend­ed its ac­tiv­i­ty to ju­di­cial func­tions as well as mat­ters of civ­il gov­er­nance, such as ad­min­is­tra­tion of pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties and levy­ing tax­a­tion on the burgess­es of the towns.

When the is­land was ca­pit­u­lat­ed to the British, the Ca­bil­do was re­tained un­til 1840, when the ex­ist­ing Span­ish leg­is­la­tion was sup­plant­ed by a British le­gal code more in keep­ing with the needs of the colony.Port-of-Spain was then a bor­ough, hav­ing been or­dained thus in 1852. San Fer­nan­do was a bit ahead of the curve, how­ev­er, hav­ing been is­sued a mu­nic­i­pal char­ter in 1846 and then con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­vised as a bor­ough in 1851. These char­ters al­lowed for the elec­tion of town coun­cil­lors and elec­tion of may­ors.The bor­oughs were al­so re­spon­si­ble for their own fi­nances and were of­ten in debt to the colo­nial gov­ern­ment for loans ex­tend­ed to un­der­take pub­lic works. The rest of the is­land was ad­min­is­tered by non-salaried of­fi­cers called com­man­dants and di­vid­ed in­to quar­ters, in a holdover from Span­ish times.In 1849, the in­tre­pid gov­er­nor, Lord Har­ris, pro­claimed a slate of wards and coun­ties, which was the first step to­wards mod­ern lo­cal gov­ern­ment. A coun­cil known as the Lo­cal Road Board over­saw the whole, and the ac­tu­al work of ad­min­is­tra­tion was done by pub­lic of­fi­cers known as war­dens, who were as­sist­ed by ward of­fi­cers. The scope of pow­ers ac­cord­ed to these su­per­nu­mer­aries was very wide and in­clud­ed the clause that:"Each ward shall be charged with the mak­ing and keep­ing in re­pair of the pub­lic roads, with­in the ward; the cost of es­tab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing pub­lic schools of in­struc­tion, and the pay­ment of the teach­ers; the es­tab­lish­ment of hous­es of refuge for the des­ti­tute; the es­tab­lish­ment of dis­pen­saries; and shall be bound to con­tribute to the ex­pense of the gen­er­al po­lice-force, and to pay the ex­pens­es of the main­te­nance of peo­ple ad­mit­ted in­to the Colo­nial Hos­pi­tal."

The present-day gov­ern­ment school sys­tem was al­so es­tab­lished in the 1850s by Lord Har­ris and the pow­ers of ad­min­is­tra­tion giv­en over to the war­dens. Need­less to say, these ear­ly in­sti­tu­tions were called ward schools. An in­ter­est­ing au­thor­i­ty ac­cord­ed to war­dens was the abil­i­ty to act as a lo­cal mag­is­trate. This ex­tend­ed to in­clude the ju­ris­dic­tion of mar­riage and thus the "war­den of­fice wed­ding" came in­to be­ing. War­dens resided in their dis­tricts, and a war­den wield­ed in­flu­ence al­most akin to be­ing a provin­cial gov­er­nor. His of­fi­cers col­lect­ed tax­es and saw to pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture es­pe­cial­ly roads, which were of ma­jor im­por­tance. Road works pro­vid­ed an es­sen­tial source of hard cur­ren­cy in rur­al ar­eas where agri­cul­tur­al peas­antry was the eco­nom­ic main­stay.

In 1899, af­ter a pe­ri­od of in­sol­ven­cy, the bor­ough char­ter of Port-of-Spain was re­voked by the gov­ern­ment, which bred much ill feel­ing and con­tributed to the Wa­ter Ri­ots of 1903, in which the Red House caught fire and sev­er­al civil­ians were killed by po­lice.The char­ter was re­stored in 1914 with an up­grade to city sta­tus. San Fer­nan­do was not made a city un­til 1988. Ari­ma is unique in that it holds a roy­al bor­ough char­ter which was is­sued in 1887 and con­ferred by Queen Vic­to­ria her­self.

The lo­cal Road Board mem­bers were ap­point­ed, whilst in the bor­oughs they were elect­ed. In 1945 this as­sem­bly was re­placed by the Coun­ty Coun­cil sys­tem, which saw each coun­ty be­ing vest­ed with a num­ber of elect­ed lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives for each ward. To be vot­ed to the coun­cil be­came a mark of pres­tige.The sys­tem of war­dens and ward of­fi­cers con­tin­ued, how­ev­er, since rates and tax­es were still paid di­rect­ly to the war­den. In 1990, the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act was passed which split the ex­ist­ing eight coun­ties in­to 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, in­clud­ing the cities of Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do and the Bor­oughs of Pt Fortin, Ari­ma and Ch­agua­nas. It is this sys­tem that has large­ly per­sist­ed to this day, with few amend­ments.The late 19th-cen­tu­ry war­den's of­fice in Bonasse Vil­lage, Ce­dros, al­so func­tioned as a mag­is­trate's court. Many ward of­fices, how­ev­er, were sim­pler struc­tures.