Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Faris Al-Rawi, is en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to pay their prop­er­ty tax­es, say­ing by do­ing so, they will be con­tribut­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of their com­mu­ni­ties.

“Prop­er­ty tax rep­re­sents, just by way of an ex­am­ple in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, it rep­re­sents giv­ing every mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion any­where be­tween 34 to 70 mil­lion dol­lars ex­tra every year,” Al-Rawi said while speak­ing at the com­mis­sion­ing of phase one of the Va­len­cia to To­co High­way in Va­len­cia yes­ter­day.

“Take a look at Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, by the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceiv­ing prop­er­ty tax alone in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, will get 67 mil­lion dol­lars a year in rev­enue. Princes Town will re­ceive 34 mil­lion dol­lars ex­tra per year in rev­enue. Now imag­ine that mon­ey go­ing to work right where it is earned, in the hands of coun­cil­lors. Where schools can be built, where drainage can be fixed, where life can be bet­ter.” He added: “The plan of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is to work with our part­ner agen­cies... to con­nect com­mu­ni­ties, to de­vel­op them, to earn rev­enue right there in our com­mu­ni­ties, and to give it right back to the peo­ple who rep­re­sent you clos­est to where you live. And then to hold them ac­count­able.”

While Al-Rawi main­tained the stance that the ex­ten­sion of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment term was nec­es­sary, he urged the pub­lic to eval­u­ate what they want from their coun­cil­lors ahead of elec­tions.

“I just call on cit­i­zens to look at the dif­fer­ence in phi­los­o­phy, what does it stand for, what do you want? Do you want lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form? Do you want a bet­ter po­si­tion for your coun­cil­lors op­er­at­ing full-time or not? The Gov­ern­ment stands for full-time,” he said.

He reem­pha­sised the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment that the lo­cal elec­tions will be held with­in three months and re­stat­ed his be­lief that there is a need for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.