Ameen: Government starving regional corporations of funding

OPPOSITION St Augustine MP Khadijah Ameen has accused the ministers of Finance and Local Government of withholding funds from different regional corporations, thereby preventing assistance from reaching communities affected by flooding over the weekend.

During the Opposition's weekly media briefing on Sunday, Ameen chided the government for not giving regional corporations the tools to do their jobs and allowing communities to fall into ruin.

Referring to heavy rainfall which led to flooding in different parts of south and central Trinidad over the weekend, Ameen said corporations have had to do without fuel for their vehicles and compared this with a recent proposal to spend millions of dollars to lay astroturf and replace the natural grass at Nelson Mandela Park in St Clair.

"Local government is the arm of government that is closest to the people, yet regional corporations are being systematically starved of funding.

"There is a continuous suppression of funding and by that I mean that even though each regional corporation has an allocation approved in the budget, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Local Government have been refusing to release this money to the regional corporations to do the work that is necessary.

"At present, the Penal/ Debe Corporation doesn't have funding to buy fuel, diesel for the vehicles to do maintenance work. This is a region that has been hard hit over the past few days with flooding, but meanwhile in the Port of Spain City Corporation they are considering a $20 million project to put astroturf in a park despite widespread objection from residents," Ameen said.

She said the flooding affected a number of farmers and warned that the livelihood of many has been affected. On the issue of flood-ruined crops, she said local food businesses that depend on fresh produce will be affected.

When Newsday contacted Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein on Sunday, he declined to comment on Ameen's claims.