Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les yes­ter­day ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to “steal an elec­tion” by re­draw­ing mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, de­scrib­ing its plan to add three cor­po­ra­tions in Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) strong­holds and re­duce the ge­o­graph­i­cal size of three Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions as “un­be­liev­able and un­ac­cept­able.”

“Per­haps the words ‘rolling dic­ta­tor’ have be­come syn­ony­mous with our Prime Min­is­ter when she pro­pos­es to ger­ry­man­der our Con­sti­tu­tion to bol­ster the UNC,” Beck­les added.

She was com­ment­ing on con­fir­ma­tion that the Gov­ern­ment will be bring­ing leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to cre­ate three more bor­oughs in Cou­va, St Au­gus­tine and Barataria.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions are due in Au­gust 2027.

The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Amend­ment Bill 2026, which pro­pos­es the changes, de­tails bound­ary shifts re­sult­ing from the changes.

The 15-clause bill al­so seeks to deal with al­der­men who shift al­le­giance from the par­ty which pro­posed them for ap­point­ment.

The bill em­pow­ers a po­lit­i­cal par­ty to vary names, sub­sti­tute names or al­ter the or­der of pref­er­ence of the names on its list of al­der­men at any time be­fore or af­ter the ap­point­ment, and to pro­vide a mech­a­nism for amend­ing the list in the event of “death, res­ig­na­tion, loss of po­lit­i­cal sup­port or for any oth­er rea­son.”

When de­clar­ing in­di­vid­u­als to be ap­point­ed al­der­men, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion will have to act in ac­cor­dance with the orig­i­nal list of al­der­men or a re­vised list sub­mit­ted by a par­ty.

An­oth­er clause pro­vides that res­ig­na­tion from or ex­pul­sion by a po­lit­i­cal par­ty of a mem­ber who holds a cor­po­rate of­fice un­der the act is a ground for de­clar­ing the of­fice va­cant.

The bill de­tails pro­ce­dures that ap­ply fol­low­ing de­c­la­ra­tion.

3 PNM cor­po­ra­tions re­duced

Among plans which the leg­is­la­tion al­so cov­ers is the re­duc­tion of the ge­o­graph­i­cal size of the PNM-held cor­po­ra­tions of Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co, San Juan-Laven­tille and Diego Mar­tin.

Mean­while, the city of San Fer­nan­do and Point Fortin Bor­ough will be ex­pand­ed to in­clude oth­er ar­eas.

In the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion in Au­gust 2023, the UNC and PNM each won sev­en cor­po­ra­tions.

On Au­gust 1, Guardian Me­dia’s po­lit­i­cal col­umn re­port­ed that Gov­ern­ment was look­ing to in­crease the num­ber of cor­po­ra­tions from the cur­rent 14 to 17 to pre­vent a tie in the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion. UNC of­fi­cials had cit­ed on­go­ing work by the par­ty ex­am­in­ing trends and bound­ary changes.

They had cit­ed the re­port of Gov­ern­ment’s Bound­aries Re­view team ap­point­ed in No­vem­ber 2025 to cor­rect out­dat­ed mu­nic­i­pal lines.

Launch­ing the ef­fort then, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kadi­jah Ameen had not­ed pop­u­la­tion dis­par­i­ties, in­clud­ing in the Cou­va, Tu­na­puna and San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tions.

She said there were re­gions that must be sep­a­rat­ed to bet­ter serve com­mu­ni­ties.

UNC of­fi­cials lat­er said changes can be made in leg­isla­tive amend­ments in Par­lia­ment sim­i­lar to the PNM’s 2021 change of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly seats from 12 to 15 af­ter the Jan­u­ary 2021 PNM/PDP tie.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar this week con­firmed changes. She said the leg­is­la­tion will bring sig­nif­i­cant changes to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment struc­ture in­clud­ing the three new bor­oughs and changes in the sta­tus of some ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

She echoed points made by Ameen in 2025 on the dis­par­i­ty is­sue and the need for changes.

Cor­po­ra­tion chairs raise con­cerns over pro­posed changes

Of­fi­cials from sev­er­al mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions have raised con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed re­struc­tur­ing of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem, ques­tion­ing the ba­sis for the changes and their po­ten­tial im­pact on ex­ist­ing cor­po­ra­tions and the com­mu­ni­ties they serve.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ari­ma deputy May­or Jo­van Roberts ques­tioned the ba­sis for the cre­ation of the three new bor­oughs, while warn­ing that lo­cal gov­ern­ment must not be­come an ad­min­is­tra­tive arm of cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

“Lo­cal gov­ern­ment must not be­come an ad­min­is­tra­tive arm of cen­tral gov­ern­ment! Ari­ma be­came a bor­ough in 1888 af­ter res­i­dents pe­ti­tioned the British gov­ern­ment for Bor­ough sta­tus. Af­ter years of con­sid­er­a­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the change from town to bor­ough was grant­ed. On what ba­sis or with what da­ta are these three new bor­oughs be­ing formed?”

Roberts al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to al­ter the bound­aries of PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions to ben­e­fit the UNC.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the treat­ment of cor­po­ra­tions un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, point­ing to dif­fer­ences in bud­get al­lo­ca­tions and what he de­scribed as a dis­re­gard for their in­de­pen­dence.

San Juan/Laven­tille Chair­man Kwe­si An­toine said he al­so dis­agreed with the pro­pos­al, ar­gu­ing the changes ap­peared de­signed to strength­en some ar­eas while iso­lat­ing oth­ers.

“I def­i­nite­ly don’t agree with this pro­pos­al. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to be a re­gion of dif­fer­ent dis­tricts; it seems this Gov­ern­ment plan is try­ing to strength­en their ar­eas and iso­late oth­er ar­eas in mak­ing them bor­oughs.”

Es­tranged UNC Siparia al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts, mean­while, said he was not sur­prised by the bill’s pro­vi­sions deal­ing with al­der­men who leave or are ex­pelled from their po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

“I’m not sur­prised at the bill’s pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing al­der­men who don’t toe the line. The bill is the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est dra­con­ian mea­sure, and it’s in keep­ing with their view that you have to fol­low them right or wrong - I’m not pre­pared to do that.”

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Josi­ah Austin said the pro­posed changes were ex­pect­ed, claim­ing he had pre­vi­ous­ly warned about them.

“This has been long await­ed, some­thing I’ve been warn­ing the pub­lic about in me­dia in­ter­views, on the pub­lic plat­form, and trust and be­lieve it’s some­thing; I mean, I’m not sur­prised. I’m not sur­prised. This is UNC at its best.”

Austin said the changes would have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and raised ques­tions about what they would mean for the com­mu­ni­ties it serves and the cor­po­ra­tion’s abil­i­ty to de­liv­er ser­vices.

Pro­posed changes

•UNC-held Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough to be­come the City of Ch­agua­nas.

•UNC-held Cou­va to be­come a bor­ough and be re­moved from the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. The re­main­ing Tabaquite/Tal­paro area will be small­er.

•Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Cor­po­ra­tion to be re­struc­tured and re­duced to fa­cil­i­tate the cre­ation of the Bor­ough of St Au­gus­tine.

• Ari­ma Bor­ough to be ex­pand­ed to in­clude ar­eas cur­rent­ly with­in Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co that are clos­er to Ari­ma.

• Fol­low­ing the changes in­volv­ing St Au­gus­tine and Ari­ma, the re­main­ing part of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co cor­po­ra­tion will be­come the Tu­na­puna Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, with a small­er pop­u­la­tion and ge­o­graph­i­cal area.

• San Juan/Laven­tille ge­o­graph­i­cal area to be re­duced with the cre­ation of the new Bor­ough of Barataria, formed from part of the San Juan/Laven­tille cor­po­ra­tion.

• Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough to be re­duced, while the City of Port-of-Spain will be ex­pand­ed ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly and in pop­u­la­tion.

• PNM-held San Fer­nan­do to be ex­pand­ed ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly, with bound­ary ad­just­ments to come.

• PNM-held Point Fortin to be ex­pand­ed, with one elec­toral area from the Bor­ough of Siparia trans­ferred to Point Fortin, re­duc­ing Siparia’s ge­o­graph­i­cal area.

Pas­sage of Bill

• House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: The leg­is­la­tion re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, mean­ing Gov­ern­ment votes alone will be suf­fi­cient for pas­sage.

• Sen­ate: The Bill re­quires the sup­port of at least one sen­a­tor in ad­di­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s 15 sen­a­tors.