Diego Mar­tin and Siparia are set to be­come this coun­try’s two newest bor­oughs.

The two con­stituen­cies are rep­re­sent­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley (Diego Mar­tin West - one third of the area) and his po­lit­i­cal ri­val Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Dr Row­ley an­nounced the two dis­tricts, which are cur­rent­ly served by Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions, will be el­e­vat­ed to Bor­ough sta­tus next year.

“The cor­po­ra­tion has al­ready agreed and has ad­vanced to the Cab­i­net that it wants Diego Mar­tin to be next bor­ough of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said the Prime Min­is­ter at the open­ing of the Diego Mar­tin South Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day (Wednes­day).

Af­ter the ap­plause from those gath­ered, the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed the el­e­va­tion of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to bor­ough sta­tus.

“We have re­ceived your rec­om­men­da­tions and steps are be­ing tak­en to ac­cept, so 2021 there are to be two new bor­oughs in Trinidad, we will have the bor­ough of Diego Mar­tin and the bor­ough of Siparia,” said Dr Row­ley, prompt­ing mur­murs of laugh­ter from the crowd.

Dr Row­ley has been the mem­ber of par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin West for 29 years, while his po­lit­i­cal ri­val Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been MP for Siparia since 1995.

The Prime Min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­plained that the op­po­si­tion had used the elec­toral map, which di­vides Diego Mar­tin in­to three seats whilst Siparia stands as a soli­tary con­stituen­cy, as an at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure they held on­to pow­er.

“My col­league the leader of the op­po­si­tion said some­thing to you, I don’t know how many of you heard but it is a con­ver­sa­tion that is car­ried ever so of­ten by per­sons who don’t live in this part of the coun­try. And that is that, and in this case it’s the gov­ern­ment, the PNM, that some­body un­fair­ly ap­por­tions seats for elec­tions so they gave Diego mar­tin three seats and Siparia on­ly gets one,” said Row­ley,” and that is the rea­son they lost the elec­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter then ex­plained that the elec­toral dis­tricts are de­ter­mined by pop­u­la­tion, and Diego Mar­tin was di­vid­ed in­to three seats be­cause it cur­rent­ly has three times the pop­u­la­tion of the South­ern dis­trict.

Once Siparia and Diego Mar­tin be­come a bor­ough they will join Ari­ma, Point Fortin and Ch­agua­nas.

The last time a dis­trict was el­e­vat­ed to bor­ough sta­tus oc­curred in 1990 when Ch­agua­nas was grant­ed bor­ough sta­tus.

Point Fortin be­came a bor­ough in 1980, while Ari­ma, the coun­try’s old­est bor­ough, be­came one in 1888.

A Bor­ough is a com­mon des­ig­na­tion in sev­er­al Eng­lish speak­ing coun­tries for an ad­min­is­tra­tive dis­trict, town or lo­cal gov­ern­ment area usu­al­ly with a self-gov­ern­ing body.

The mean­ing of a bor­ough, how­ev­er, varies from coun­try to coun­try.