Local Government Elections 2019 Thread

[The_Honourable]

So since CNC3 and other media houses will be running a series on local government, decided to start this ched.

Yuh voting or nah? Where is this local government reform long promised that is only a talking point during election time? Should we abolish local government and have Councillors be elected together with an MP during Generals?

__________

Do you vote for Local Government elections?

If the answer is no, you're not alone. Almost two-thirds of the electorate did not vote in 2016's Local Government polls.

But as we begin our coverage of the upcoming Local Government elections, Akash Samaroo explains why it may be worth making the effort this time around.

[The_Honourable]

Local Government reform bill

'Give up private jobs, work as full-time mayors'

Can­di­dates con­test­ing up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions will have to be pre­pared to give up their jobs if they win their seats since pro­posed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form leg­is­la­tion—be­ing de­bat­ed Wednes­day—de­mands full-time may­or and coun­cil­lors.

May­ors and coun­cil­lors are not cur­rent­ly full-time and they on­ly re­ceive a stipend, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein con­firmed last Fri­day.

Un­der the pro­posed law to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, fu­ture may­ors and coun­cil­lors will have to be on the job full-time. He added that they'll be re­ceiv­ing a salary—re­mu­ner­a­tion which will have to be ap­proved by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter.

The 11-clause bill re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage and can be passed by Gov­ern­ment votes alone.

The bill, known as the act to amend the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act (2019), seeks to amend sec­tions of the law per­tain­ing to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (LG) op­er­a­tions on all as­pects—from posts, per­son­nel, pub­lic health and san­i­ta­tion to mar­kets and dog con­trol.

It al­so in­tro­duces new claus­es on as­pects in­clud­ing func­tions of a chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer who will con­trol cor­po­ra­tions, the full-time posts for may­ors, coun­cil­lors, and al­der­men and how tax­es will be used to fund cor­po­ra­tion op­er­a­tions.

Fol­low­ing re­form, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry funds are ex­pect­ed to be su­per­vised by the Fi­nance Min­istry, while Rur­al De­vel­op­ment will spear­head cor­po­ra­tion op­er­a­tions.

The law is ex­pect­ed to be in place for the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term. Elec­tions are ex­pect­ed ahead since the cur­rent term ends No­vem­ber, with Feb­ru­ary 2021 be­ing the out­er­most date polls can be held.

The LG re­form bill, which Gov­ern­ment aims at pass­ing be­fore the up­com­ing Par­lia­men­tary re­cess in two weeks, will be the spring­board for ac­tiv­i­ties. It will be de­bat­ed as both the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) close nom­i­na­tion process­es for LG nom­i­nees and turn to launch screen­ing.

The PNM's dead­line for sub­mis­sion is Fri­day and screen­ing be­gins around Ju­ly 6.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings added yes­ter­day, "Af­ter that, we con­tin­ue screen­ing dai­ly. We aim to com­plete by the end of Au­gust. Screen­ing starts with nom­i­nees for San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion, San Fer­nan­do, Siparia, and Point Fortin."

The UNC had about 400 nom­i­nees (in­clud­ing for gen­er­al polls). Of­fi­cials said LG nom­i­na­tions are closed and screen­ing is ex­pect­ed soon.

In the 2016 LG polls, the PNM won 83 of the 137 seats in the 14 cor­po­ra­tions, while the UNC net­ted 54.

The PNM is "con­fi­dent" about ob­tain­ing more than the sev­en of the 14 coun­cils the par­ty now con­trols.

The UNC launched its LG cam­paign last month, re­port­ed­ly "eye­ing" eight of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and tar­get­ing San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co to add to its hold­ings. Par­ty of­fi­cials were quot­ed in May say­ing in­cum­bents want to con­test again. Ma­yaro cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Glen Ram, who was charged (sub­se­quent to that) had sub­mit­ted a nom­i­na­tion be­fore be­ing charged. UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials could not con­firm yes­ter­day that this nom­i­na­tion was with­drawn.

The LG re­form bill has come to re­al­i­ty af­ter a num­ber of years and sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Ho­sein added, "It's the first time re­form is be­ing pre­sent­ed af­ter be­ing dis­cussed for years. I've li­aised with Op­po­si­tion coun­cil­lors and I think every­one wants this. It's a for­mat which will rev­o­lu­tionise Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment."

Op­po­si­tion voic­es con­cern

But the Op­po­si­tion has al­ready voiced con­cerns about some as­pects and will be ex­pand­ing ar­gu­ments in Wednes­day's de­bate, says UNC MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan.

Ram­bachan said, "We've al­ready ex­pressed con­cern about cer­tain claus­es propos­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term be ex­tend­ed from three years to four and we're still con­cerned whether this will be used to post­pone up­com­ing polls and ex­tend the cur­rent term.

"But an­oth­er con­cern is the Fi­nance Min­is­ter's role in su­per­vis­ing fi­nances for cor­po­ra­tions who'll now get their mon­ey from him as pro­posed. You can't have ef­fec­tive Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment if you lack re­sources. Poor re­sources have tra­di­tion­al­ly been Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment's blight. One has to en­sure the play­ing field is lev­elled if re­form is to suc­ceed.

"Pro­pos­als for may­ors and coun­cil­lors to be full-time will al­so re­quire their re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages to be lu­cra­tive. This change will chal­lenge peo­ple re­gard­ing com­mit­ment to ser­vice."

Oth­er UNC of­fi­cials ex­pressed con­cern on pro­posed wider pow­ers for CEOs, as it was felt this could al­low a CEO to shut down a coun­cil re­gard­less of a may­or's po­si­tion.

Lo­cal Govt re­form bill pro­pos­als in­clude:

• “Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer” re­places ref­er­ences to “City Clerk or Town Clerk”.

• Coun­cil­lor's term to be var­ied from the cur­rent three to four years.

• Al­der­men will serve four years.

• Vari­a­tion of the re­quire­ment for a per­son to be an al­der­man by re­quir­ing an al­der­man to be a per­son who qual­i­fies to be a coun­cil­lor.

• Fi­nance Min­is­ter would de­ter­mine the re­mu­ner­a­tion/al­lowances for may­or, al­der­men, coun­cil­lors and the word “hon­o­rar­i­um” (stipend) wher­ev­er men­tioned will be re­placed by “re­mu­ner­a­tion”.

• Re­moval of the re­quire­ment for a coun­cil­lor to have his/her qual­i­fy­ing prop­er­ty sit­u­at­ed in the elec­toral area but in an elec­toral dis­trict oth­er than the elec­toral dis­trict for which he/she seeks to be a can­di­date.

• Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of a per­son from be­ing a coun­cil­lor where he/she's been con­vict­ed of an of­fence car­ry­ing a penal­ty of five years-plus.

• Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion's dai­ly op­er­a­tion. All chief of­fi­cers and staff re­port­ing di­rect­ly to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of that cor­po­ra­tion.

• Cor­po­ra­tions will have a mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil (sim­i­lar to Cab­i­net) and ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil (sim­i­lar to city coun­cil).

• Ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil will be sub­ject to the om­buds­man.

• Re­peal of the sub­sec­tion pro­vid­ing that for cor­po­ra­tions oth­er than cities and bor­oughs at least one al­der­man be elect­ed from per­sons who are mem­bers of a vil­lage or com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil with­in a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.

• A deputy may­or will act in the stead of a may­or who dies/re­signs/is re­moved/dis­qual­i­fied, un­til a new may­or is elect­ed, rather than suc­ceed­ing to the of­fice of may­or au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

• The coun­cil will ap­point an al­der­man or coun­cil­lor as deputy may­or where the may­or is act­ing as deputy may­or. Such a per­son would hold of­fice un­til the date the deputy may­or ceas­es to act as a may­or.

• In­crease in the penal­ty from $4,000 to $10,000 four for a qual­i­fied per­son who is elect­ed to cor­po­ra­tion of­fice and fails to ac­cept the of­fice by mak­ing and sub­scrib­ing the re­quired de­c­la­ra­tion with­in five days af­ter no­tice of the elec­tion. The qual­i­fied per­son will be de­barred from of­fer­ing him­self/her­self from any fur­ther mu­nic­i­pal elec­tions.

• Where the mu­nic­i­pal di­rec­tor of health/any med­ical/health of­fi­cer be­lieves a pa­tient is suf­fer­ing from an oc­cu­pa­tion­al dis­ease con­tract­ed in any in­dus­tri­al es­tab­lish­ment he shall with­in 48 hours no­ti­fy the chief med­ical of­fi­cer who shall send the no­tice to the chief in­spec­tor and fa­cil­i­tate in­spec­tion/ex­am­i­na­tion, in­quiry and tak­ing of sam­ples con­cern­ing premis­es.

• Pro­vi­sions for each cor­po­ra­tion Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice as well as the Pub­lic Ser­vices Com­mis­sion and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vices Com­mis­sion to ap­point a suf­fi­cient num­ber of com­mis­sioned of­fi­cers, sub­or­di­nate po­lice of­fi­cers, con­sta­bles.

• Au­tho­ri­sa­tion to the Board of In­land Rev­enue to for­ward tax­pay­ers' in­for­ma­tion to the cor­po­ra­tion and which would re­quire them to keep such in­for­ma­tion con­fi­den­tial and which pro­vides for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the cor­po­ra­tion to col­lect res­i­den­tial land-prop­er­ty tax­es and to re­tain such tax­es in its cor­po­ra­tion fund.

• Em­pow­er­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter to ap­prove the al­lo­ca­tion of mon­ey to oth­er pur­pos­es oth­er than those to which such monies were al­lo­cat­ed un­der this act.

• Re­cep­tion of ap­pli­ca­tions for the de­vel­op­ment of land with­in a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty and de­ter­mi­na­tion whether they are sim­ple/com­plex de­vel­op­ments. Where the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion de­ter­mines the de­vel­op­ment is com­plex it would re­fer ap­pli­ca­tion to the Plan­ning Min­is­ter.

• In­creased penal­ties for vi­o­la­tion of in Dog Con­trol Act, in­clud­ing in­creased jail terms up to nine months plus fines up to $5,000.

• Fi­nance Min­is­ter may or­der if agri­cul­tur­al, in­dus­tri­al or com­mer­cial tax­es may be col­lect­ed by mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and what per­cent­ages re­tained.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/local-go ... f723c9b35d

[The_Honourable]

Parliament Videos on Local Government and proposed reforms:

[vaiostation]

The only people who care about local government elections are, the politicians, party members and financiers. This is the tiny minority that has fuked up this island...

[maj. tom]

Is the entire establishment such as Local Government as we know it now required a in such small country to manage the resources? Seems like an archaic colonial concept in how the Crown would manage their colonies passed on from how local governments work in England.

Is there a better system which would eliminate the inherent corruption and dissatisfaction associated with the Local Government in Trinidad and Tobago? Perhaps it could be reformed into something more efficient.

What!! Constitutional Reform?!! promise to do that in every last election since 1986 and skelter...

[Dizzy28]

Is the entire establishment such as Local Government as we know it now required a in such small country to manage the resources? Seems like an archaic colonial concept in how the Crown would manage their colonies passed on from how local governments work in England.

Is there a better system which would eliminate the inherent corruption and dissatisfaction associated with the Local Government in Trinidad and Tobago? Perhaps it could be reformed into something more efficient.

What!! Constitutional Reform?!! promise to do that in every last election since 1986 and skelter...

The regional corporation system was meant to address the old county system and its inefficiencies.
IMO the biggest problem is not the system but the people.

Local government is very inefficient and corrupt. This loss of resources negates a lot of the benefits the system is meant to give.

How many of us know of Councillors that got their road alone paved? Or built massive houses where corporation trucks used to drop off material?

[shake d livin wake d dead]

foot soldiers for UNC already out and about in parts of Grande...I just waiting for them to reach by me to tell them they loss 4 votes from my household cuz we ain't voting one MC...I doh even know my Councillor

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/local-go ... 22af560a8f

facts

[zoom rader]

foot soldiers for UNC already out and about in parts of Grande...I just waiting for them to reach by me to tell them they loss 4 votes from my household cuz we ain't voting one MC...I doh even know my Councillor

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/local-go ... 22af560a8f

facts

Nice, when PNM pass round tell them they doing a good job

[Rovin]

when i obtained d age of voting i used to go out for every single election & vote , u know ize a good bai

but as we get older & wiser we all realize politics only benefit d politicians not us d ppl , plenty ppl get old & dead & still eh realize this fact

they all come with sugar coated words convincingly promising that we d ppl wud all get what we deserve in a govt like what we see on paper but reality is completely different . When they get into office all they do is throw a few crumbs here\there & sit in their fancy offices collecting nice pay & doing very little for d ppl who put them there


so now this is for ALL politrickcians ....

[hydroep]

Yup when yuh young and naive.

Years ago, a small business family (parents and two sons, who had establishments in both Chaguanas and San Fernando) unapologetically told me they played both sides of the field, for the same reason as the 1% —to get favours done.

At the time I thought "these people so deceitful, yuh should pick a side on principle and stick by that". But in retrospect its obvious they had it right and the joke was on me. If politicians use you, nothing wrong with using them too. But — as Jack Sparrow says — yuh hadda be savvy to pull that off, otherwise they go eat you alive.

I still hold out hope that one day things will change but I'm realistic at the same time. When they come by me asking if they could count on my support I does say "yeah man, of course" and then do my own thing if/when I go to the voting booth because it eh make sense making bad with nobody and the party grassroots — especially the PNM ones — does hold grudge. And I make no apologies for saying that...

[matix]

When they come around I usually have the gates open, some Slipknot or As I Lay Dying playing downstairs and the dogs sitting in the driveway. People just walk on the other side of the street.

[VexXx Dogg]

It's time to play your politicians instead of having them play you.
Anybody seeking re-election now will get busy. Make 'em dance.

[The_Honourable]

Kazim: Local elections in 3 months' time



Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions are ex­pect­ed to be held with­in the next three months— be­tween late No­vem­ber and ear­ly De­cem­ber of this year.

The pro­posed date was giv­en by Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day.

"I think the time for lo­cal elec­tions should be around the end of No­vem­ber, ear­ly De­cem­ber. Well, I don't know the date but it should be around No­vem­ber, De­cem­ber..." Ho­sein said.

Ho­sein gave the sug­gest­ed date five days af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Bill where he de­scribed pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els at the coun­try's 14 cor­po­ra­tions "as the worst."

The bill, which was laid in the Low­er House, seeks to amend the ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion's act and sev­er­al pieces of its cur­rent leg­is­la­tion.

It al­so serves to make de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient.

In­sist­ing that staff at the cor­po­ra­tions have poor work ethics, Ho­sein did not hold back his tongue, as he blamed "man­age­ment is­sues" on the part of CEOs for the on­go­ing prob­lem.

"No mat­ter how much lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form we want...if peo­ple can't do what they are asked to do the re­form would not work. Once the re­form comes in every­body would fall in. Some­body has to be the dri­ving force be­tween the min­istry and cor­po­ra­tions," he had said.

"I didn't come to look for no friends in there. I came to do a job. When my time is up I have to go my way. While I am there I will talk and get the job done in the right way. I will get op­po­si­tion but I am fo­cused on what I have to do."

Ho­sein who served as San Fer­nan­do may­or for three years said on Wednes­day that it was the norm to vis­it a cor­po­ra­tion and see work­ers scrolling through Face­book, en­gaged on their cell­phone or in talk ses­sions with their co-work­ers rather than work­ing.

Oth­er em­ploy­ees, he said, would ei­ther leave work ear­ly or not show up at all and still col­lect a full day's pay.

This, he said, puts the cor­po­ra­tions in a bad light.

The cor­po­ra­tions have 14,000 em­ploy­ees.

Since be­fore In­de­pen­dence, Ho­sein said lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form has been on the coun­try's po­lit­i­cal agen­da.

"Lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form will give cor­po­ra­tions the pow­er to man­age their own af­fairs. So they will choose lo­cal con­trac­tors with­in their cor­po­ra­tion and col­lect their own res­i­den­tial tax­es. As of now, con­trac­tors could come from San­gre Grande and work in Pe­nal/Debe. When the re­form comes that can­not hap­pen. The coun­cil will have the say of what projects they want...they would pri­ori­tise which one they want over which one."

Ho­sein said the biggest stum­bling block Gov­ern­ment would face with the re­form would be im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Once the bill goes in­to ef­fect, Ho­sein said there would be changes with the way cor­po­ra­tions op­er­ate and do busi­ness.

Ques­tioned about cor­po­ra­tions op­er­at­ing with lit­tle or no fund­ing to un­der­take projects, Ho­sein said this has al­ways been an is­sue with lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

"Not to­day, not the last three years, not six years...Fund­ing is not avail­able like how it used to be."

In the 2018/2019 Bud­get, Ho­sein's min­istry was al­lo­cat­ed $1.52 bil­lion.

While some cor­po­ra­tions called on Ho­sein to ex­plain why monies have not been forth­com­ing, he said his min­istry just acts as a con­duit be­tween the cor­po­ra­tions and Fi­nance Min­istry.

"So when re­quests for fund­ing comes to the min­istry we send it to Fi­nance and Fi­nance would send the cheques back to us and we would fil­ter it down to the 14 cor­po­ra­tions."

In the last five weeks, Ho­sein said he had read with in­ter­est in the Sun­day Guardian news­pa­per com­plaints of burgess­es in Ch­agua­nas, San­gre Grande, Princes Town and Ari­ma cor­po­ra­tions about lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion by some coun­cil­lors.

Equal­ly dis­turb­ing, Ho­sein said, many burgess­es could not iden­ti­fy their coun­cil­lors which showed they were not con­nect­ing with peo­ple on the ground.

Ho­sein said it was dis­ap­point­ing for a burgess not to know their coun­cil­lor.

At all times, Ho­sein said, chair­men, coun­cil­lors and may­ors should be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic.

"When a man com­plains about a drain you don't have to get it done one time. But you need to talk and lis­ten. Patrick Man­ning used to tell me, God gave every hu­man be­ing two ears and a mouth for one rea­son. It is not what you say but how you say it."

Ho­sein said it was im­prop­er and un­pro­fes­sion­al for coun­cil­lors to quar­rel with burgess­es when they raise an is­sue af­fect­ing them.

"You can't do that (quar­rel). You have to talk to the peo­ple and ex­plain to them the sit­u­a­tion. You can't be wrong and strong."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/local-el ... 93c8e6762e

[zoom rader]

^^^ the man right , lazy arse workers who scheme the systems.

I don't blame them, i blame management that don't give them a full days work to account for their time.

Mind you these are the folk that vote PNM.

[hydroep]

A few years ago, one of them came around canvassing for re-election...never saw her in my life.

When I asked "How come I never see you around" she say she was sick for a while — probably from the time she got elected...

[88sins]

when they enact legislation so that no individual can run for any governmental office for more than one term, and make it mandatory that those that do run & win their post MUST be audited along with those persons affiliated with them after serving to ensure zero misuse of state resources, THEN I go vote



until then, I invite them all to take a 6 mile walk off a 3' jetty

[zoom rader]

when they enact legislation so that no individual can run for any governmental office for more than one term, and make it mandatory that those that do run & win their post MUST be audited along with those persons affiliated with them after serving to ensure zero misuse of state resources, THEN I go vote



until then, I invite them all to take a 6 mile walk off a 3' jetty

Dat and a red flying PNM pig you will not see. Maybe Shamfa

[Rovin]

date announce about 1\2 hr ago ...

The Office of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
26 mins ·
Dr the Hon. Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago is pleased to announce that the Local Government Elections shall be held on Monday 02 December, 2019 and that the Writs of Elections shall be issued in due course.

silly season begins ....

[shake d livin wake d dead]

let the picong officially begin...

[VexXx Dogg]

They have some time to pave the road in front meh house.
Lemme see that rat of a councillor for by me. Ah pelting him with cowdung

[Dizzy28]

Now to book my 2 hrs. I usually want evening but allow others first pick only to see them with no ink on their fingers the next day.

[zoom rader]

PNM done win

[D Diesel Report]

PNM done win

Why yuh tink dey pick de date. Is to chain up people with erection promises of 2.50 and cepep moneeeeeeeyyy.

boy I go laff when trini is competing with haiti, maybe den we will learn how to operate.

[maj. tom]

people does vote in local government elections?

[The_Honourable]

Should local and generals go together and be called the National Elections?

[paid_influencer]

i going to vote UNC across the board on Dec 2

[sMASH]

Should local and generals go together and be called the National Elections?

i say get rid of the mps and only have Councillors, with a prime minister.

[hong kong phooey]

let us go drink instead and leave all this political hatred to the man who only pulling skin , randol

[matix]

let us go drink instead and leave all this political hatred to the man who only pulling skin , randol

Name the place

[shake d livin wake d dead]

Local election tuner lime