Ameen warns Rowley

OPPOSITION senator Khadijah Ameen yesterday warned the Prime Minister not to delay the local government elections due at year-end, as that would frustrate voters’ desire to use the ballot box to express their dismay with the Government’s performance in national affairs.

“I send a warning to Dr Rowley. The population will not forgive the PNM government for postponing the local elections again. Many people are anxiously waiting to cast their vote.”

Ameen said the PNM, as the former Patrick Manning administration, had a history of postponing local elections, since 2006.

“They postponed local elections four times in a row. I experienced it as a councillor. My term was supposed to be three years but it turned into seven years.

“Local elections were only called by Kamla Persad-Bissessar in July 2010 when she came into office.”

Ameen said that at a recent Monday Night Forum in Diego Martin, Persad-Bissessar had revealed that a new bill, the Miscellaneous Provisions (Local Government Reform) Bill 2019, proposed to extend the term of all councillors by an extra year, a measure the UNC leader said could delay local polls.

Explanatory notes to the bill says it will “vary the term of office of councillors from three years to four years.”

The senator said Persad-Bissessar’s remarks that the bill could be used to postpone this year’s local polls had got people thinking. “The Government is yet to give a commitment as to when this bill will be debated and when it will be proclaimed,” Ameen said.

Newsday asked her reactions to acting Prime Minister Colm Imbert’s defence at last Wednesday’s post-Cabinet briefing that three years must lapse before fresh polls, that Dr Rowley said elections will be called when constitutionally due and that local and general elections won’t occur on the same day.

Ameen said, “Mr Imbert has still not answered the concerns of the Opposition and the population as to whether local government elections will be postponed or not with a categorical ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

She alleged that in contrast to the Government’s manifesto pledge in 2015, they had not done much to advance local government reform.

She said cash-starved local corporations are being further burdened by having to take on cleaning duties and even school maintenance previously done by bodies such as CEPEP and the Ministry of Works.

“There has been a constant disempowerment of local government in the PNM’s time in office, each year not giving them the funding sought yet giving them more work to do.”

Newsday was unable to contact Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi or Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein for comment.