JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, April 4, 2025

Local Govt Ministry maps out plan for reform

by

1092 days ago
20220407
Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi spoke at his first media briefing, at the Ministry’s Head Office, Kent House, Long Circular Road, Maraval, yesterday.

Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi spoke at his first media briefing, at the Ministry’s Head Office, Kent House, Long Circular Road, Maraval, yesterday.

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

In his first press con­fer­ence as Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day put forth op­ti­mistic trans­for­ma­tive plans for the coun­try once the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form leg­is­la­tion is passed in the near fu­ture.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, Al-Rawi said cit­i­zens could ex­pect to be a part of the so­lu­tion as tech­nol­o­gy is in­te­grat­ed in­to op­er­a­tions, al­low­ing griev­ances to be re­port­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

“We are in a process of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. We will be launch­ing, in the month of May—all things be­ing equal—our apps which have been de­signed,” he said.

“We then have per­sons able to ge­o­t­ag where their leaks are, where their lights have prob­lems, where col­lec­tions have not hap­pened, where their over­grown lots are- what­ev­er the ser­vices are.”

He al­so said that the Cab­i­net had ap­proved a na­tion­al clean-up and sur­vey ex­er­cise to take place by month’s end. He said the sur­vey will make note of in­fra­struc­tur­al re­pairs need­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the 80 per cent of roads in the coun­try un­der its re­mit.

He said peo­ple could even use the app when it is launched to re­port pot­holes.

He said the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and a sec­ondary roads com­pa­ny com­ing in­to his min­istry will be seek­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for “al­ter­na­tive tech­niques to tra­di­tion­al road sur­fac­ing.”

“Our is­sue with road con­di­tions in Trinidad and in To­ba­go is large­ly be­cause soil sta­bil­i­ty, road sta­bil­i­ty, is dif­fer­ent from area to area but there are tech­niques that we are aware of in the min­istry,” he said.

He said the sec­ondary road com­pa­ny will al­so be de­vel­op­ing stan­dards for re­pairs that are more ef­fec­tive and cost-ef­fi­cient.

With­in the sur­vey ex­er­cise, he said, or­phan roads - those which aren’t not­ed in the re­spec­tive re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion’s records - will be ad­dressed.

“If these things are not vest­ed in a cor­po­ra­tion, the cor­po­ra­tion can­not spend tax­pay­ing dol­lars on it. This is the con­cept of what we call or­phan roads,” he said.

“So part of this ex­er­cise is to iden­ti­fy all of the or­phan roads and or­phan fa­cil­i­ties and then to im­me­di­ate­ly see them vest­ed in the cor­po­ra­tions so that peo­ple can have re­lief de­liv­ered to them.”

He said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice ser­vice will be ex­pand­ed from 700 of­fi­cers to 1,500.

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored