This coun­try’s ad­ver­sar­i­al po­lit­i­cal cul­ture leaves lit­tle room for the con­struc­tive pub­lic dis­course that should be tak­ing place dur­ing the tran­si­tion to a new lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem.

While par­ti­san wran­glings hog the spot­light, the trans­for­ma­tion cur­rent­ly un­der­way on the pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion of cities, towns and dis­tricts across Trinidad has been pushed in­to the back­ground. This is of no ben­e­fit to the cit­i­zens di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the most sig­nif­i­cant re­forms to lo­cal gov­ern­ment in more than three decades.

Just over a year ago, on May 23, 2022, Par­lia­ment passed the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Act. That amend­ment to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act is ex­pect­ed to bring about more ef­fec­tive qual­i­ty ser­vice de­liv­ery and sus­tain­able and bal­anced de­vel­op­ment of com­mu­ni­ties.

Con­sid­er­ing the long, dif­fi­cult process to fi­nal­ly get to this stage in the mod­erni­sa­tion and trans­for­ma­tion of lo­cal gov­ern­ment, it is a pity there is so lit­tle ef­fort to ed­u­cate the pub­lic about the changes that will soon take ef­fect.

This takes on even greater ur­gency now that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has sig­nalled that the elec­tion will oc­cur with­in three months.

There is an op­por­tu­ni­ty now, with lo­cal gov­ern­ment very much in fo­cus since last week’s Privy Coun­cil rul­ing, for more re­spon­si­ble, fruit­ful dis­cus­sions about the sys­tem that will be ush­ered in with the next elec­tion.

Dr Row­ley has not yet an­nounced the elec­tion date, but the PNM and UNC are al­ready well in­to mo­bil­is­ing for the weeks of cam­paign­ing not too far off. Screen­ing of prospec­tive can­di­dates is un­der­way and it is im­por­tant for vot­ers to un­der­stand the ex­pand­ed range of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for the men and women who will be vy­ing to be­come coun­cil­lors, cor­po­ra­tion chairs and may­ors.

Ex­pe­ri­ence, qual­i­fi­ca­tions and char­ac­ter will have to be care­ful­ly weighed, as, in the new dis­pen­sa­tion, suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will be em­ployed full-time and put in charge of large bud­gets and sig­nif­i­cant re­sources, and will be co-or­di­nat­ing key ser­vices in the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

Hope­ful­ly, the loud and per­sis­tent calls for the elec­tion to be held now will not drown out oth­er crit­i­cal el­e­ments of the re­form process, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter all the de­lays which cit­i­zens have been sub­ject­ed to over many years.

Hazel Man­ning was the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter when plans to up­grade the sys­tem were first an­nounced. Sev­er­al rounds of con­sul­ta­tions were held, green and white pa­pers pro­duced — and then the process stalled.

In the in­ter­ven­ing years, cit­i­zens have been sub­ject­ed to chron­ic in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the sys­tems and coun­cils strug­gled with in­suf­fi­cient re­sources and out­dat­ed op­er­at­ing sys­tems. Frus­tra­tion over these fail­ures in the sys­tem has boiled over in­to many of the fiery protests staged in com­mu­ni­ties.

At its core, lo­cal gov­ern­ment is about the de­liv­ery of ser­vice and fa­cil­i­tat­ing de­vel­op­ment that af­fects cit­i­zens di­rect­ly at the ground lev­el. There needs to be greater aware­ness so they can en­joy the full ben­e­fits of the long-promised mod­ern and trans­formed mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion mem­bers who will be sworn in af­ter the elec­tion.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, pol­i­tics in T&T is so sharply fo­cused on trib­al­ism and the quest for pow­er that there is lit­tle room for the com­mit­ment to ser­vice that should be at the core of lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

So much more progress could be made if ef­forts are made by those hold­ing of­fice and seek­ing of­fice, to lift the qual­i­ty of the de­bate on these cru­cial po­lit­i­cal is­sues.