Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Con­cerns over po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion, dis­pro­por­tion­ate fund­ing among re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the un­will­ing­ness of some to speak out on pub­lic is­sues were raised dur­ing an in­ter­faith cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s 3rd an­niver­sary yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing her fea­ture ad­dress at the St John’s RC Church, Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er thanked past and present ad­min­is­tra­tors for their self­less­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to their du­ties over the years.

With­out nam­ing any par­tic­u­lar in­sti­tu­tion or per­son, how­ev­er, she al­so ac­knowl­edged that there seemed to be a per­sis­tent fear to dis­agree with or make pub­lic re­marks con­trary to the main­stream nar­ra­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly about is­sues re­lat­ing to pub­lic af­fairs.

“Right now, we live in a time when too many peo­ple are afraid to speak. Afraid that if they ex­press a dif­fer­ent opin­ion, they will be crit­i­cised. Afraid that if they ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions, they will be vic­timised. Afraid that if they stand for what they be­lieve is right, they may stand alone... or these days get ar­rest­ed.

“But faith does not teach us to be silent in the face of con­vic­tion, faith teach­es us to speak with wis­dom, to lis­ten with hu­mil­i­ty, to dis­agree with­out dis­re­spect and to chal­lenge each oth­er re­spect­ful­ly to work to­geth­er de­spite our dif­fer­ences.

“That is the kind of coun­try we must aim to con­tin­ue build­ing, de­spite the dif­fi­cul­ties we now face.”

Glas­gow-Warn­er there­fore urged those present to unite re­gard­less of their dif­fer­ences to en­sure that the wider Diego Mar­tin com­mu­ni­ty and so­ci­ety as a whole pros­pers with can­did, re­spect­ful en­gage­ment on is­sues.

Dur­ing her re­marks, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les com­mend­ed Glas­gow-Warn­er for speak­ing out when the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived less fund­ing for de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tion in re­cent times, com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

“She (Glas­gow-Warn­er) named it pub­licly for what it was. Dis­crim­i­na­tion and an un­fair treat­ment to her cor­po­ra­tion.”

In keep­ing with the theme of the cer­e­mo­ny, ‘Stronger To­geth­er,’ Beck­les al­so praised the burgess­es of Diego Mar­tin for dis­play­ing uni­ty de­spite their dif­fer­ences, adding that a strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty would give them the re­silience to over­come any dif­fi­cul­ty.

“It is the faith that gath­ers us in places to re­mem­ber, that be­fore we are PNM or Op­po­si­tion, be­fore we are coun­cil­lors or burgess­es, be­fore we are any of the cat­e­gories that pol­i­tics some­times di­vides us in­to, we are Chil­dren of God.”

Beck­les closed by promis­ing that “eq­ui­ty” would be re­stored among all re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions if her par­ty re­turned to pow­er.

But when con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen dis­missed Beck­les’ com­ments, ar­gu­ing that PNM-held re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions con­tin­ued to re­ceive more al­lo­ca­tions than UNC-held cor­po­ra­tions as re­cent as the last bud­get.

“The PNM’s claim that their cor­po­ra­tions are be­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly fund­ed is ab­solute­ly un­true.

“For years, they un­der­fund­ed UNC cor­po­ra­tions and wast­ed mil­lions on fetes. When we came in­to of­fice many cor­po­ra­tions were mil­lions (of dol­lars) in debt be­cause PNM nev­er gave them enough mon­ey for garbage col­lec­tion and oth­er crit­i­cal ex­pen­di­ture, in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co, that’s ow­ing $30 mil­lion to con­trac­tors.

“It was in a mess. We are in the process of fix­ing it. So they vex when we say pay your bills be­fore you throw fete. They are try­ing to cry wolf, but the facts are the facts.”

Last week, the Port-of-Spain May­or com­plained that the cor­po­ra­tion was un­able to pay June salaries due to fund­ing is­sues.