Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen is de­fend­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed 2027 al­lo­ca­tions to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, ar­gu­ing that fund­ing de­ci­sions are guid­ed by their abil­i­ty to utilise the mon­ey pro­vid­ed, with ad­di­tion­al re­sources avail­able where jus­ti­fied.

Ameen faced sus­tained ques­tion­ing from Op­po­si­tion MPs dur­ing Tues­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of her min­istry, par­tic­u­lar­ly over re­duc­tions in al­lo­ca­tions for road re­pairs, drainage, dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties in sev­er­al cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Port-of-Spain.

Ameen pushed back against sug­ges­tions that the re­duced al­lo­ca­tions would nec­es­sar­i­ly un­der­mine the de­liv­ery of es­sen­tial ser­vices, point­ing to in­stances where cor­po­ra­tions re­ceived ad­di­tion­al fund­ing dur­ing the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year, de­spite ini­tial­ly re­ceiv­ing small­er sums.

She al­so high­light­ed cas­es where bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions had gone un­used, ar­gu­ing that cor­po­ra­tions must demon­strate their ca­pac­i­ty to spend the re­sources be­fore be­ing pro­vid­ed with larg­er sums.

The is­sue came in­to sharp fo­cus when Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert ques­tioned why the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion had been al­lo­cat­ed just $500,000 for its lo­cal roads and bridges pro­gramme.

Im­bert asked what could rea­son­ably be ac­com­plished across the cap­i­tal’s roads and bridges with that amount.

Ameen re­spond­ed that the cor­po­ra­tion had al­so re­ceived an ini­tial al­lo­ca­tion of $500,000 in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year, but that fig­ure was sub­se­quent­ly in­creased fol­low­ing a re­view of its needs.

“Based on their need, that was re­vised, and they got al­most three times that amount. They got $1.4 mil­lion,” she said.

The min­is­ter main­tained that the pro­posed al­lo­ca­tion could al­so be re­viewed, as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to work with the cor­po­ra­tion.

How­ev­er, the ex­change grew con­tentious, with Im­bert de­scrib­ing the ini­tial al­lo­ca­tion as dis­crim­i­na­to­ry.

The al­lo­ca­tion for drainage and ir­ri­ga­tion in Port-of-Spain al­so came un­der scruti­ny, with Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young ques­tion­ing a re­duc­tion from a re­vised es­ti­mate of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9.645 mil­lion in 2026 to $480,000 in the pro­posed 2027 bud­get.

Young ar­gued that the city con­tin­ued to face flood­ing prob­lems dur­ing pe­ri­ods of heavy rain­fall and high tides, and ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment had re­duced fund­ing by more than $9 mil­lion.

Ameen coun­tered that coastal flood­ing fell un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works, rather than the city cor­po­ra­tion.

She not­ed that flood­ing af­fect­ed sev­er­al ar­eas across the coun­try, in­clud­ing Diego Mar­tin and Ce­dros, and said some ex­ist­ing flood­gates and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture re­quired at­ten­tion af­ter years of ne­glect.

Young, how­ev­er, in­sist­ed that his ques­tion con­cerned the drainage sys­tem with­in Port of Spain it­self.

In re­sponse, Ameen turned to the cor­po­ra­tion’s spend­ing his­to­ry.

“Mr Chair­man, in 2025, the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion spent $0 un­der this line item,” she said.

She ex­plained that the cor­po­ra­tion had ini­tial­ly been al­lo­cat­ed $500,000 in 2026, but re­ceived an ad­di­tion­al $9.1 mil­lion dur­ing the mid-year re­view.

Ameen said the pro­posed 2027 al­lo­ca­tion stood at $480,000, adding that it re­mained open to re­vi­sion.

The min­is­ter’s ex­pla­na­tion placed the em­pha­sis on the dis­tinc­tion be­tween an ini­tial bud­get al­lo­ca­tion and ad­di­tion­al fund­ing sub­se­quent­ly pro­vid­ed dur­ing the year, while rais­ing ques­tions about how much of the cor­po­ra­tion’s re­quire­ments could be met through the or­di­nary bud­getary process.

Young al­so ques­tioned why the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness al­lo­ca­tion re­mained at $100,000 for 2027, de­spite an ini­tial al­lo­ca­tion of $100,000 in 2026 and con­cerns that the amount was in­suf­fi­cient.

Ameen re­spond­ed that the cor­po­ra­tion had spent none of the $100,000 al­lo­cat­ed in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year.

She main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment had again pro­vid­ed $100,000 for the up­com­ing year and in­tend­ed to work with the cor­po­ra­tion to en­sure that the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion was sub­mit­ted.

Young al­so point­ed to pro­posed projects in Port-of-Spain, in­clud­ing im­prove­ments to Jack­son Square, re­fur­bish­ment of the play­ing courts at Nel­son Man­dela Park and restora­tion work at Wood­ford Square.

He cit­ed re­quests of $200,000 for Jack­son Square, $5 mil­lion for the Nel­son Man­dela Park play­ing courts and $600,000 for Wood­ford Square, and ques­tioned why the cor­po­ra­tion had not re­ceived enough fund­ing to un­der­take the projects.

Ameen ac­knowl­edged that cor­po­ra­tions could sub­mit re­quests for projects, but said not every re­quest could be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in the na­tion­al bud­get.

“It’s re­al­ly nice when a cor­po­ra­tion can list, like make a wish list,” she said.

“The fact is, not every­thing you re­quest you will get in the bud­get, but a big part of what Bud­get Di­vi­sion looks at is your ca­pa­bil­i­ty to utilise the funds.”