AND SEAN DOUGLAS
ST Augustine MP and the Opposition shadow minister for local government Khadija Ameen, is calling on Rural Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi to come clean and state clearly if taxpayers’ money is being used to fund the PNM’s election’s campaign.
Ameen referred to a Facebook post on the mayor of San Fernando Junia Regrello’s page in which he credited Al-Rawi who is also the MP for San Fernando West with providing funding for road paving work to be done in the city.
“I call on Faris to tell us where the funds coming from. Are you using tax payer’s dollars to campaign, to try and buy votes in the city of San Fernando because you are afraid to lose.”
Both Regrello and Al-Rawi in response said the money came from an increase in funding that was allocated across the board to all regional corporations.
At a news conference on Tuesday held at the Siparia Borough Corporation, Ameen displayed a photocopy of the Regrello’s post where she joined SRC chairman Dinesh Sankersingh who spoke about the challenges in securing funding to service areas which falls within the remit of the region.
Sankersing said, owing to a shortage in allocation, most of his corporation's trucks were not working, making it difficult to remove material from the stockpile at Fyzabad to pave roads.
While other corporations are being neglected Ameen said, “What we are seeing in fact, in the city of San Fernando, the mayor is boasting of development in his area. I saw a wonderful Facebook post where he is indicating that the MP for San Fernando West has provided additional funding for work to be done while council is dissolved.
“My question to TT is, is the San Fernando City Corporation (SFCC) being given taxpayer dollars to campaign. Where is the additional funding coming from and is it monies from our coffers being used to campaign.”
She asked, “Is the PNM so afraid of losing the SFCC that they have resorted to taking taxpayer’s dollars to campaign when other regions are severely neglected because you are afraid of losing the city of San Fernando?”
She noted, in almost every region, chairmen, mayors and former councillors have spoken of challenges to get additional funding from the Rural Development and Local Government Ministry (RLDG) to fix roads and here we have the mayor of San Fernando boasting about additional funding.”
San Fernando is one of the critical seats in this local government election.
Both the People’s National Movement (PNM) which lost ground in the last local government election conceding three seats to the United National Congress (UNC) and the UNC are battling to retain control of this corporation that could determine which side is victorious.
One of those former UNC councillor Marcus Girdharrie has crossed over to the PNM and contesting the same seat he held on a PNM ticket this time around. There is interest to see whether the votes cast in the last election were for him personally or for the party which he represented at the time.
Both the PNM and the UNC are sche
