KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

A fund­ing short­fall at the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion (PoSCC) could trig­ger in­dus­tri­al un­rest and dis­rupt garbage col­lec­tion in the cap­i­tal with­in weeks, as of­fi­cials warn the body may be un­able to meet pay­roll be­yond the end of May.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a “fis­cal fi­as­co,” say­ing that while hir­ing and fir­ing falls un­der the Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the cor­po­ra­tion does not have the funds to sus­tain its wage bill.

“It means that you may find your­self with some in­dus­tri­al un­rest. You may find your­self with goods and ser­vices not be­ing de­liv­ered, and I am here this morn­ing to ad­vo­cate on be­half of those pub­lic ser­vants and, by ex­ten­sion, all of the burgess­es of the City of Port-of-Spain who de­mand a clean, safe city and con­tin­ue to de­liv­er the ser­vices that we de­liv­er,” Al­leyne said.

He at­trib­uted the loom­ing short­fall to the 2026 na­tion­al bud­get al­lo­ca­tion and the Gov­ern­ment’s im­ple­men­ta­tion of a ten per cent salary in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, along with an ad­vance on back­pay.

Al­leyne said cor­po­ra­tions were di­rect­ed to ab­sorb those costs us­ing ex­ist­ing al­lo­ca­tions, which re­duced the funds avail­able for the lat­ter part of the fi­nan­cial year.

“The cor­po­ra­tions in lo­cal gov­ern­ment and across the gov­ern­ment sec­tor were di­rect­ed to use their ex­ist­ing al­lo­ca­tion to pay the back­pay and the in­creased salaries, which means that we took the mon­ey for Ju­ly, Au­gust and Sep­tem­ber to pay back­pay, so that now we are com­ing to the point where we are short of cash.”

Al­leyne al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that poor spend­ing pri­or­i­ties were con­tribut­ing to the fi­nan­cial strain, fol­low­ing com­ments made by Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen.

He said cor­po­ra­tions op­er­ate with­in strict bud­getary line items, with lim­it­ed flex­i­bil­i­ty to re­al­lo­cate funds with­out ap­proval.

Al­leyne added that re­quests for vire­ments must pass through the City Coun­cil, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

Be­yond pay­roll, he warned that re­duced al­lo­ca­tions for waste man­age­ment could have im­me­di­ate pub­lic health con­se­quences.

He said fund­ing for con­tract­ed garbage col­lec­tion has been cut by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 37 per cent, and the cor­po­ra­tion may soon be un­able to pay con­trac­tors ser­vic­ing East Port-of-Spain. While col­lec­tion con­tin­ues in­ter­nal­ly in west­ern ar­eas, any dis­rup­tion in the East could lead to a sig­nif­i­cant build-up of waste.

How­ev­er, Ameen re­ject­ed Al­leyne’s claims, in­sist­ing the Gov­ern­ment is ad­dress­ing long­stand­ing debt and im­prov­ing fi­nan­cial dis­ci­pline across mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions.

“One cor­po­ra­tion be­ing in $30 mil­lion debt for scav­eng­ing ser­vices alone did not hap­pen un­der the UNC Gov­ern­ment. An­oth­er cor­po­ra­tion be­ing three years in ar­rears to T&TEC did not hap­pen un­der UNC. We are com­mit­ted to fix­ing it, and debt man­age­ment has to in­clude pri­ori­tis­ing ser­vice de­liv­ery over throw­ing a fete,” Ameen said.

She said she would not be drawn in­to a pro­longed ex­change, main­tain­ing that the Min­istry re­mains fo­cused on work­ing with all cor­po­ra­tions.

Adding to the de­bate, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said sim­i­lar fi­nan­cial con­straints are al­ready af­fect­ing op­er­a­tions in South.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Par­ris said the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion is fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant lim­i­ta­tions that are im­pact­ing its abil­i­ty to main­tain nor­mal ser­vice de­liv­ery, in­clud­ing chal­lenges with pro­cure­ment, ve­hi­cle re­pairs, and sus­tain­ing short-term labour.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion is al­so strug­gling to meet op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es such as over­time for es­sen­tial pub­lic health ac­tiv­i­ties, while out­stand­ing debts to sup­pli­ers have be­gun to af­fect cred­it arrange­ments and ac­cess to goods and ser­vices.

Par­ris said the cor­po­ra­tion’s mid-year re­view projects ex­pen­di­ture of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $140.4 mil­lion against a re­vised al­lo­ca­tion of $109.2 mil­lion, re­sult­ing in a short­fall of about $31 mil­lion.

“These re­al­i­ties re­flect the broad­er im­pact of re­duced and in­suf­fi­cient al­lo­ca­tions to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions for fis­cal 2025/2026,” Par­ris said, adding that con­cerns raised by Al­leyne are con­sis­tent with chal­lenges be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced across oth­er cor­po­ra­tions.

Pro­vid­ing a con­trast­ing per­spec­tive, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo said his cor­po­ra­tion re­mains fi­nan­cial­ly sta­ble for now but will still re­quire ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.

He said the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion is “okay” un­til the mid-year pe­ri­od and is not at risk of miss­ing salary pay­ments or sus­pend­ing ser­vices, al­though it con­tin­ues to seek ad­di­tion­al fund­ing for re­cur­rent ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing util­i­ties, re­pairs, NIS, salaries and garbage col­lec­tion.

Mayrhoo added that it is not un­usu­al for cor­po­ra­tions to re­quest sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing, not­ing that al­lo­ca­tions are typ­i­cal­ly re­leased on a phased ba­sis.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, echoed that po­si­tion, say­ing the re­lease of funds is stag­gered through­out the fi­nan­cial year.

“There is no bud­get that gives you a lump sum of mon­ey at the be­gin­ning of the pe­ri­od for the en­tire year, so it is pro­gres­sive­ly re­leased, and the re­leas­es are hap­pen­ing,” Ma­haraj said.

He said one of the main ar­eas re­quir­ing ad­just­ment is the in­crease in Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme con­tri­bu­tions, which was not in­clud­ed in ini­tial es­ti­mates.