Gail Alexan­der

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day hailed the court vic­to­ry over the UNC on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form law and al­so lament­ed the death of at­tor­ney Neil Byam in court.

Al-Rawi did so while pi­lot­ing leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment to grant the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions of Siparia and Diego Mar­tin bor­ough sta­tus.

Al-Rawi be­gan his con­tri­bu­tion em­pha­sis­ing Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form and its moves to turn on the sys­tem, in­clud­ing with par­tial procla­ma­tion of the law.

Say­ing Gov­ern­ment wasn’t alone, Al-Rawi added, “Min­utes ago in the Court of Ap­peal, we just won the chal­lenge that was brought by the UNC against the Gov­ern­ment to try and strike out amend­ments we had put in.

“So, we’ve just won that, and the Court of Ap­peal has agreed with the Gov­ern­ment that it was prop­er to put in­to ef­fect the four-year term for coun­cil­lors and al­der­men as op­posed to a three-year term. Thank the Lord God for the in­de­pen­dence of our ju­di­cia­ry.”

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi not­ed that al­so in the Court of Ap­peal yes­ter­day, pri­or to the de­liv­ery of that judg­ment, “We lost a pub­lic ser­vant, past of note. Mr Neil Byam col­lapsed and passed away lit­er­al­ly in the Court of Ap­peal to­day.”

Al-Rawi added, “Per­mit me, hav­ing worked with Mr Byam for many years in my ca­pac­i­ty as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and years pri­or, to of­fer deep­est con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and loved ones. Be­cause sure­ly to­day, he didn’t wake up with the in­ten­tion of de­part­ing us that soon.

“May the Lord God rest his soul in eter­nal peace and may the Lord have mer­cy on him. Dear Lord, we pray for that.”

Al-Rawi said the bill to make Siparia and Diego Mar­tin bor­oughs rep­re­sent­ed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to bring­ing to life the de­sire of res­i­dents of both lo­ca­tions. He said it sought to en­sure de­vo­lu­tion of pow­er and au­ton­o­my for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, rolling the sit­u­a­tion close to the con­text of a Ca­bil­do arrange­ment.

He said in con­fer­ring the pow­er of cities and bor­oughs to the two lo­ca­tions, is­sues such as traf­fic op­er­a­tion will change: no more re­vers­ing around cor­ners or down roads. Bor­ough sta­tus will al­so al­low the cor­po­ra­tions of those ar­eas to bor­row, plus there will be fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties to get funds and twin­ning will al­so be fa­cil­i­tat­ed.

But the bill to fa­cil­i­tate bor­ough sta­tus won’t cause any change to elec­tion bound­aries, he as­sured.

Al-Rawi al­so an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment is en­gaged in up­grad­ing of vest­ing, as there are or­phan roads and for a long time, peo­ple have com­plained of their ar­eas not be­ing ser­viced by the RDLG Min­istry. The vest­ing or­der to rec­ti­fy this is be­ing pre­pared and near com­ple­tion. He said he’ll take it to Cab­i­net and vest­ing to take care of 23 years of de­vel­op­ment is afoot.