Regional Corporations Must Prove Value
Dear Editor,
I write as an elder in my community, someone who has paid taxes for decades, raised children here, and watched governments come and go. I have seen times when local government worked quietly and well, and times when excuses became louder than results.
That is why the present quarrel between PNM-controlled regional corporations and the Prime Minister over funding troubles me, not because money is being debated, but because citizens like me are still not being shown how our money is used.
When the Prime Minister says “not a cent more,” many people my age understand exactly why that phrase resonates.
According to the figures she placed before the country, 13,406 people are employed across local government for $2.1 billion a year, yet garbage still piles up, drains are still clogged, and roads still crumble.
I live in one of those communities. I see the bins were missed. I watch rain carry rubbish straight back into the drains. These are not political talking points; they are daily realities.
I do not dismiss the concerns raised by mayors and councillors who say their allocations have been cut, some by as much as 40%, affecting sanitation and preparations for Carnival in Port of Spain. Those are serious matters. But they cannot be separated from the wider picture.
The same figures show that seven PNM corporations will receive nearly $1 billion in 2026, more than their UNC counterparts, while also employing thousands more workers. As an ordinary citizen, I am left asking a simple question: where is the value?
At my age, I have learned that people are not usually against funding services.
What they are against is being asked to pay more without seeing better results. When the Prime Minister speaks of workers signing attendance books and disappearing by mid-morning, or of cleanup jobs done halfway and left to wash away in the next rain, she is voicing a frustration many of us have quietly carried for years.
Whether every example is fair or not, the perception is damaging, and perceptions are a reality in public life.
A call for transparency
If PNM corporations want the public to support their call for more funding, the answer is not press conferences or Facebook exchanges. The answer is transparency. Show us how much goes to frontline work and how much to administration.
Show us how many supervisors there are for every worker in the field. Show us vehicle usage, overtime spending, and contract costs. Explain, in plain language, how one extra dollar improves service in my street, not just on paper.
I have lived long enough to know that organisations must change or be left behind. Many regional corporations still operate as if time stood still, with manual systems, outdated staffing, and poor supervision. Mechanisation and better management are not threats; they are necessities.
When the Prime Minister speaks of outsourcing or modernising if performance does not improve, that should not shock anyone who has watched the private sector adapt simply to survive.
This is not about party colours. It is about respect for taxpayers, especially pensioners and working families who stretch every dollar. Local government only functions with public consent, and that consent is earned when people can see that their money is being used wisely.
If the regional corporations spend the next eight months showing real reform, clear priorities, and visible results, citizens like me will not need convincing. We will support what works. But until then, asking for more without first showing the work only deepens mistrust.
At my stage in life, I am not interested in noise. I am interested in roads that drain, bins that get emptied, and institutions that remember who pays the bill.
Ainsley Bellile, St Joseph
