KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Sen­ate yes­ter­day passed the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, paving the way for Ch­agua­nas to be el­e­vat­ed to city sta­tus and for the cre­ation of four new bor­oughs.

The leg­is­la­tion was ap­proved with 23 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, six against and one ab­sten­tion.

Al­though mem­bers of the In­de­pen­dent bench did not con­tribute to the de­bate, eight of the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the bill. In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Fran­cis Lewis ab­stained.

The in­de­pen­dents’ sup­port comes amid pre­vi­ous crit­i­cism from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over the bench’s op­po­si­tion to Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, most re­cent­ly the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

The bill pro­vides for the es­tab­lish­ment of the City of Ch­agua­nas and the bor­oughs of Barataria, Cou­va, St Au­gus­tine and San­gre Grande. It al­so re­draws sev­er­al mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries and in­tro­duces changes gov­ern­ing coun­cil­lors and al­der­men who cross the floor.

Pi­lot­ing the leg­is­la­tion, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said the re­forms were nec­es­sary to ad­dress dis­par­i­ties in the size and pop­u­la­tion of mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, whose bound­aries have re­mained large­ly un­changed since 1992.

She ar­gued that pop­u­la­tion growth and shift­ing com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty have placed in­creas­ing pres­sure on some re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, while oth­ers have seen com­par­a­tive­ly lim­it­ed growth. The pro­posed changes, she said, were in­formed by pop­u­la­tion sta­tis­tics, elec­toral da­ta and plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions.

“This bill seeks to have fair­er dis­tri­b­u­tion of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and ser­vice de­liv­ery. This bill, Mr Pres­i­dent, is about ser­vice to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ameen said.

She al­so stressed that the leg­is­la­tion would not af­fect the tenure of ex­ist­ing coun­cil­lors and al­der­men or de­lay the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

Ameen re­vealed that Cab­i­net ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee in Au­gust 2025 to re­view mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries, with its fi­nal re­port com­plet­ed in April 2026. Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, the com­mit­tee con­sult­ed mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cials, elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, gov­ern­ment min­istries, agen­cies, busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

She said 18 min­istries and agen­cies were con­sult­ed by Feb­ru­ary, while rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 12 of the coun­try’s 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions lat­er par­tic­i­pat­ed in dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing may­ors and chair­men.

The min­is­ter ex­plained that the leg­is­la­tion would come in­to ef­fect on a date fixed by the Pres­i­dent, al­low­ing the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) time to de­lim­it dis­tricts and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the trans­fer of as­sets and oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments.

Ad­dress­ing pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to coun­cil­lors and al­der­men who change po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance, Ameen said va­can­cies cre­at­ed by coun­cil­lors cross­ing the floor would be filled through by-elec­tions, while va­cant al­der­man po­si­tions would be filled from the rel­e­vant po­lit­i­cal par­ty’s list.

She main­tained that the mea­sure was in­tend­ed to pro­tect the man­date vot­ers give to po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

“Peo­ple vote for a per­son on a po­lit­i­cal par­ty’s tick­et. And if that per­son wish­es to go on an­oth­er tick­et, it is on­ly fair that the elec­torate has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to say yes or no,” she said.

On re­solv­ing dead­locks in coun­cil votes for may­ors, deputy may­ors, chair­men and deputy chair­men, Ameen said the par­ty that se­cured the high­er pop­u­lar vote with­in the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty would be award­ed the po­si­tion where coun­cil num­bers are tied.

She al­so as­sured mu­nic­i­pal em­ploy­ees that the re­struc­tur­ing would have no ad­verse im­pact on jobs, con­di­tions of ser­vice or trade union rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“No work­er los­es their job, no work­er los­es the terms of their em­ploy­ment and no work­er los­es rep­re­sen­ta­tion by their union be­cause of this bill,” she said.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to pro­vide sen­a­tors with the com­mit­tee’s re­port and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments be­fore the de­bate. He not­ed that Ameen had re­lied on a Cab­i­net minute, rec­om­men­da­tions from the com­mit­tee and EBC da­ta to jus­ti­fy the pro­posed re­forms.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings went fur­ther, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the bound­ary changes to im­prove the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ elec­toral prospects. He ar­gued that the pro­pos­als, when viewed along­side re­cent al­lo­ca­tions for de­vel­op­ment projects, raised con­cerns about what he de­scribed as “ge­o­graph­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion” against Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

Cum­mings con­tend­ed that un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, de­vel­op­ment fund­ing was dis­trib­uted rel­a­tive­ly even­ly across cor­po­ra­tions re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal con­trol. He al­leged that since the change in gov­ern­ment, sev­er­al UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions had re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant in­creas­es while PNM-con­trolled ar­eas ex­pe­ri­enced no­table re­duc­tions. De­spite his con­cerns, Cum­mings in­sist­ed the Op­po­si­tion was not op­posed to lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form or the el­e­va­tion of Ch­agua­nas to city sta­tus.

In­stead, he ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to clear­ly demon­strate how the changes would im­prove lo­cal gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

Cum­mings al­so ques­tioned the arrange­ments for staffing, ac­com­mo­da­tion, in­fra­struc­ture and fi­nanc­ing, as well as the ca­pac­i­ty of the pro­posed cor­po­ra­tions to de­liv­er es­sen­tial ser­vices.