Princes Town busi­ness­man and a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T, Ravi Suryade­vara is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to pump more mon­ey in­to re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, es­pe­cial­ly as high­er oil and gas prices are gen­er­at­ing more rev­enue this fis­cal year.

"I would like to see the Gov­ern­ment re­tire some of their past bills, I would like the Gov­ern­ment to fo­cus on the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment with the spe­cif­ic in­tent of in­creas­ing the sub­ven­tion. It is a trans­fer and sub­sidy that comes from there to the var­i­ous re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

"Port-of-Spain gets in the vicin­i­ty of 220-some­thing mil­lion dol­lars to run the cap­i­tal of the coun­try, and I am sure the may­or of that city will say it’s not enough. I am ask­ing for the spe­cif­ic in­crease to the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions for the ar­eas of mu­nic­i­pal polic­ing and safe­ty. With­out safe­ty, peo­ple will leave," he said.

He al­so said in some re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, al­lo­ca­tions are bare­ly enough to cov­er ba­sic salaries.

Suryade­vara spoke yes­ter­day at a pre-bud­get fo­rum host­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) at the Table­land High School. The Gov­ern­ment still has not giv­en the date when the next na­tion­al bud­get will be read.

"The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in the Rev­enue and Es­ti­mates pro­vid­ed at last year’s bud­get said the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry where re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions fall was al­lot­ted $2.1 bil­lion out of $49.7 bil­lion to­tal. I have been a pro­po­nent for small gov­ern­ment foot­print as our land­mass is not large, and you will crowd out the pri­vate sec­tor. Last year, the Princes Town Cor­po­ra­tion was al­lot­ted $73 mil­lion. They are sup­posed to run mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, ceme­ter­ies, parks, paved roads with that mon­ey. To pay staff alone like cor­po­ra­tion work­ers is $53 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly," Suryade­vara added.