The Chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PTRC) is ap­peal­ing ur­gent­ly to the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on when the funds col­lect­ed from prop­er­ty tax­es would be al­lo­cat­ed to the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

In a re­lease, Gowrie Roop­nar­ine points to state­ments made by Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi that prop­er­ty tax rev­enues would di­rect­ly ben­e­fit the Cor­po­ra­tion.

“On mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions, in­clud­ing the open­ing of the Dou­glas Road Mus­lim Ceme­tery, Min­is­ter Al-Rawi in­di­cat­ed that Mr. Roop­nar­ine should en­cour­age his par­ty to sup­port the im­ple­men­ta­tion of prop­er­ty tax,” the re­lease said.

The PTRC chair­man said: “The cor­po­ra­tion has a lim­it­ed al­lo­ca­tion of just $200,000 for ceme­tery main­te­nance. In re­sponse, Min­is­ter Al-Rawi re­it­er­at­ed that prop­er­ty tax sup­port would fa­cil­i­tate fund­ing for the cor­po­ra­tion. How­ev­er, de­spite these as­sur­ances, res­i­dents of the Princes Town re­gion who dili­gent­ly paid their prop­er­ty tax­es dur­ing Ju­ly, Au­gust, and Sep­tem­ber 2024 are still wait­ing to see these funds which were promised. Cit­i­zens en­dured long lines, of­ten as ear­ly as 6:30 am, at the Princes Town Rev­enue Of­fice to ful­fil their oblig­a­tions, be­liev­ing their con­tri­bu­tions would im­prove vi­tal in­fra­struc­ture such as roads, ceme­ter­ies, drains, and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties.”

“It is time for the Min­is­ters of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Fi­nance to ful­fil their com­mit­ments and en­sure that the prop­er­ty tax rev­enues are al­lo­cat­ed to ad­dress the press­ing needs of our re­gion,” Gowrie as­sert­ed.

He not­ed that the PTRC is still await­ing word from the Min­is­ter “re­gard­ing the funds that were promised” de­spite the fact that the coun­try cur­rent­ly is in the fourth month of the fi­nan­cial year,

“The cit­i­zens of Princes Town and the cor­po­ra­tion de­serve trans­paren­cy and quick ac­tion,” he said.