RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

As Gov­ern­ment moves to make Diego Mar­tin one of two new bor­oughs in the coun­try, res­i­dents said yes­ter­day they are baf­fled by what this means for their com­mu­ni­ty.

The mat­ter was raised in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, dur­ing de­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Es­tab­lish­ment of the Bor­ough of Diego Mar­tin and the Bor­ough of Siparia) Bill 2021. The oth­er re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion tabled for bor­ough sta­tus is Siparia.

At one of the busiest points in Diego Mar­tin, the trans­port hub in Bagatelle, many res­i­dents said they weren’t re­al­ly sure what it meant but said they hoped that it would on­ly bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty.

One res­i­dent, mar­ket ven­dor Eliz­a­beth Letrin, said she strong­ly be­lieves that things still need to be done at a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion lev­el be­fore it can reach bor­ough sta­tus.

“There are some things I would say that needs to be looked at though, be­cause be­ing in a re­gion we have not been get­ting so much done,” Letrin said.

Letrin added that she hopes res­i­dents will not have to en­dure hefty tax­es. “I be­lieve they would prob­a­bly have it a lit­tle self-con­tained of a sit­u­a­tion run­ning the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and oth­er sit­u­a­tions but at this point, as I said be­fore I don’t see it as some­thing press­ing, some­thing that needs to be ad­dressed right away.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Lisa Maraj, said bor­ough sta­tus would on­ly mean more al­lo­ca­tion of funds.

“It would mean more mon­ey and we hope that it will be put to use in the ben­e­fit of us the res­i­dents.”

Kaz­im Ab­dool said the peo­ple should have been giv­en a bet­ter ex­pla­na­tion from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

“They should come out be­fore and let us know cer­tain things in the cor­po­ra­tion and the tax­es so we could un­der­stand bet­ter,” Ab­dool said.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Sigler Jack sought to give an ex­pla­na­tion in sim­pler terms.

Jack said as a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, they have ex­pe­ri­enced lack of fund­ing to have projects done. “Salary fund­ing was sure be­cause we know that fig­ure for cer­tain but the dis­burse­ment of fund­ing for some works and projects didn’t come as ex­pect­ed and in time as ex­pect­ed,” Jack said.

“In its en­tire­ty, the fund­ing and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty will change. We are more in­clined now to take de­ci­sions and work with burgess­es at all lev­els to de­vel­op the Diego Mar­tin re­gion and that’s in essence, in a cap­sule, what bor­ough sta­tus is about.”

Jack al­so said in­vest­ments for prop­er­ty and land will be eas­i­er and bet­ter for res­i­dents, as well as peo­ple in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“Be­ing a bor­ough, we have more au­ton­o­my than what we have right now as a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion,” he added.

How­ev­er, Jack said over the past sev­er­al years there have been sev­er­al pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the is­sue, even un­der the for­mer Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, now de­ceased.

“I re­mem­bered at­tend­ing four such con­sul­ta­tions and these con­sul­ta­tions were pub­lic and held all over the coun­try,” he said.