Can­di­dates con­test­ing up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions will have to be pre­pared to give up their jobs if they win their seats since pro­posed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form leg­is­la­tion—be­ing de­bat­ed Wednes­day—de­mands full-time may­or and coun­cil­lors.

May­ors and coun­cil­lors are not cur­rent­ly full-time and they on­ly re­ceive a stipend, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein con­firmed last Fri­day.

Un­der the pro­posed law to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, fu­ture may­ors and coun­cil­lors will have to be on the job full-time. He added that they'll be re­ceiv­ing a salary—re­mu­ner­a­tion which will have to be ap­proved by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter.

The 11-clause bill re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage and can be passed by Gov­ern­ment votes alone.

The bill, known as the act to amend the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act (2019), seeks to amend sec­tions of the law per­tain­ing to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (LG) op­er­a­tions on all as­pects—from posts, per­son­nel, pub­lic health and san­i­ta­tion to mar­kets and dog con­trol.

It al­so in­tro­duces new claus­es on as­pects in­clud­ing func­tions of a chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer who will con­trol cor­po­ra­tions, the full-time posts for may­ors, coun­cil­lors, and al­der­men and how tax­es will be used to fund cor­po­ra­tion op­er­a­tions (See box).

Fol­low­ing re­form, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry funds are ex­pect­ed to be su­per­vised by the Fi­nance Min­istry, while Rur­al De­vel­op­ment will spear­head cor­po­ra­tion op­er­a­tions.

The law is ex­pect­ed to be in place for the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term. Elec­tions are ex­pect­ed ahead since the cur­rent term ends No­vem­ber, with Feb­ru­ary 2021 be­ing the out­er­most date polls can be held.

The LG re­form bill, which Gov­ern­ment aims at pass­ing be­fore the up­com­ing Par­lia­men­tary re­cess in two weeks, will be the spring­board for ac­tiv­i­ties. It will be de­bat­ed as both the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) close nom­i­na­tion process­es for LG nom­i­nees and turn to launch screen­ing.

The PNM's dead­line for sub­mis­sion is Fri­day and screen­ing be­gins around Ju­ly 6.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings added yes­ter­day, "Af­ter that, we con­tin­ue screen­ing dai­ly. We aim to com­plete by the end of Au­gust. Screen­ing starts with nom­i­nees for San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion, San Fer­nan­do, Siparia, and Point Fortin."

The UNC had about 400 nom­i­nees (in­clud­ing for gen­er­al polls). Of­fi­cials said LG nom­i­na­tions are closed and screen­ing is ex­pect­ed soon.

In the 2016 LG polls, the PNM won 83 of the 137 seats in the 14 cor­po­ra­tions, while the UNC net­ted 54.

The PNM is "con­fi­dent" about ob­tain­ing more than the sev­en of the 14 coun­cils the par­ty now con­trols.

The UNC launched its LG cam­paign last month, re­port­ed­ly "eye­ing" eight of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and tar­get­ing San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co to add to its hold­ings. Par­ty of­fi­cials were quot­ed in May say­ing in­cum­bents want to con­test again. Ma­yaro cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Glen Ram, who was charged (sub­se­quent to that) had sub­mit­ted a nom­i­na­tion be­fore be­ing charged. UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials could not con­firm yes­ter­day that this nom­i­na­tion was with­drawn.

The LG re­form bill has come to re­al­i­ty af­ter a num­ber of years and sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Ho­sein added, "It's the first time re­form is be­ing pre­sent­ed af­ter be­ing dis­cussed for years. I've li­aised with Op­po­si­tion coun­cil­lors and I think every­one wants this. It's a for­mat which will rev­o­lu­tionise Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment."

Op­po­si­tion voic­es con­cern

But the Op­po­si­tion has al­ready voiced con­cerns about some as­pects and will be ex­pand­ing ar­gu­ments in Wednes­day's de­bate, says UNC MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan.

Ram­bachan said, "We've al­ready ex­pressed con­cern about cer­tain claus­es propos­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term be ex­tend­ed from three years to four and we're still con­cerned whether this will be used to post­pone up­com­ing polls and ex­tend the cur­rent term.

"But an­oth­er con­cern is the Fi­nance Min­is­ter's role in su­per­vis­ing fi­nances for cor­po­ra­tions who'll now get their mon­ey from him as pro­posed. You can't have ef­fec­tive Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment if you lack re­sources. Poor re­sources have tra­di­tion­al­ly been Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment's blight. One has to en­sure the play­ing field is lev­elled if re­form is to suc­ceed.

"Pro­pos­als for may­ors and coun­cil­lors to be full-time will al­so re­quire their re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages to be lu­cra­tive. This change will chal­lenge peo­ple re­gard­ing com­mit­ment to ser­vice."

Oth­er UNC of­fi­cials ex­pressed con­cern on pro­posed wider pow­ers for CEOs, as it was felt this could al­low a CEO to shut down a coun­cil re­gard­less of a may­or's po­si­tion.

Lo­cal Govt re­form bill pro­pos­als in­clude:

• “Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer” re­places ref­er­ences to “City Clerk or Town Clerk”.

• Coun­cil­lor's term to be var­ied from the cur­rent three to four years.

• Al­der­men will serve four years.

• Vari­a­tion of the re­quire­ment for a per­son to be an al­der­man by re­quir­ing an al­der­man to be a per­son who qual­i­fies to be a coun­cil­lor.

• Fi­nance Min­is­ter would de­ter­mine the re­mu­ner­a­tion/al­lowances for may­or, al­der­men, coun­cil­lors and the word “hon­o­rar­i­um” (stipend) wher­ev­er men­tioned will be re­placed by “re­mu­ner­a­tion”.

• Re­moval of the re­quire­ment for a coun­cil­lor to have his/her qual­i­fy­ing prop­er­ty sit­u­at­ed in the elec­toral area but in an elec­toral dis­trict oth­er than the elec­toral dis­trict for which he/she seeks to be a can­di­date.

• Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of a per­son from be­ing a coun­cil­lor where he/she's been con­vict­ed of an of­fence car­ry­ing a penal­ty of five years-plus.

• Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion's dai­ly op­er­a­tion. All chief of­fi­cers and staff re­port­ing di­rect­ly to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of that cor­po­ra­tion.

• Cor­po­ra­tions will have a mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil (sim­i­lar to Cab­i­net) and ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil (sim­i­lar to city coun­cil).

• Ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil will be sub­ject to the om­buds­man.

• Re­peal of the sub­sec­tion pro­vid­ing that for cor­po­ra­tions oth­er than cities and bor­oughs at least one al­der­man be elect­ed from per­sons who are mem­bers of a vil­lage or com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil with­in a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.

• A deputy may­or will act in the stead of a may­or who dies/re­signs/is re­moved/dis­qual­i­fied, un­til a new may­or is elect­ed, rather than suc­ceed­ing to the of­fice of may­or au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

• The coun­cil will ap­point an al­der­man or coun­cil­lor as deputy may­or where the may­or is act­ing as deputy may­or. Such a per­son would hold of­fice un­til the date the deputy may­or ceas­es to act as a may­or.

• In­crease in the penal­ty from $4,000 to $10,000 four for a qual­i­fied per­son who is elect­ed to cor­po­ra­tion of­fice and fails to ac­cept the of­fice by mak­ing and sub­scrib­ing the re­quired de­c­la­ra­tion with­in five days af­ter no­tice of the elec­tion. The qual­i­fied per­son will be de­barred from of­fer­ing him­self/her­self from any fur­ther mu­nic­i­pal elec­tions.

• Where the mu­nic­i­pal di­rec­tor of health/any med­ical/health of­fi­cer be­lieves a pa­tient is suf­fer­ing from an oc­cu­pa­tion­al dis­ease con­tract­ed in any in­dus­tri­al es­tab­lish­ment he shall with­in 48 hours no­ti­fy the chief med­ical of­fi­cer who shall send the no­tice to the chief in­spec­tor and fa­cil­i­tate in­spec­tion/ex­am­i­na­tion, in­quiry and tak­ing of sam­ples con­cern­ing premis­es.

• Pro­vi­sions for each cor­po­ra­tion Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice as well as the Pub­lic Ser­vices Com­mis­sion and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vices Com­mis­sion to ap­point a suf­fi­cient num­ber of com­mis­sioned of­fi­cers, sub­or­di­nate po­lice of­fi­cers, con­sta­bles.

• Au­tho­ri­sa­tion to the Board of In­land Rev­enue to for­ward tax­pay­ers' in­for­ma­tion to the cor­po­ra­tion and which would re­quire them to keep such in­for­ma­tion con­fi­den­tial and which pro­vides for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the cor­po­ra­tion to col­lect res­i­den­tial land-prop­er­ty tax­es and to re­tain such tax­es in its cor­po­ra­tion fund.

• Em­pow­er­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter to ap­prove the al­lo­ca­tion of mon­ey to oth­er pur­pos­es oth­er than those to which such monies were al­lo­cat­ed un­der this act.

• Re­cep­tion of ap­pli­ca­tions for the de­vel­op­ment of land with­in a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty and de­ter­mi­na­tion whether they are sim­ple/com­plex de­vel­op­ments. Where the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion de­ter­mines the de­vel­op­ment is com­plex it would re­fer ap­pli­ca­tion to the Plan­ning Min­is­ter.

• In­creased penal­ties for vi­o­la­tion of in Dog Con­trol Act, in­clud­ing in­creased jail terms up to nine months plus fines up to $5,000.

• Fi­nance Min­is­ter may or­der if agri­cul­tur­al, in­dus­tri­al or com­mer­cial tax­es may be col­lect­ed by mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and what per­cent­ages re­tained.