By Alicia Chamely
PROJECTS under the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government have not been stalled contrary to what has been published in the media.
Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen has refuted an article published in the Sunday Guardian Newspaper with the headline, “Ameen’s project plans stall without property tax funds.”
The ministry issued a statement on Sunday evening disputing claims that it was relying on property tax revenue to roll out projects. It stated that this was a “fabrication.”
In the article stated that multiple sources within the corporations confirmed a meeting was convened by Ameen to strategise the funding of various projects, as the $135 million collected via property tax, budgeted to fund corporation projects, was now sitting in the Consolidation Fund, inaccessible to the corporations.
The Sunday Guardian article stated, “The property tax was intended to be collected through the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA) as part of a broader tax collection system. However, with the TTRA now repealed, the funding mechanism is gone. The TTRA was repealed before any of the revenue it had collected could be routed back to the vote it was originally tied to, leaving regional corporations with no access to the millions collected. As a result, regional corporations are facing shortfalls in their goods and services budgets, with the extent of the shortfall varying from one corporation to another.”
While she had not denied funding was not an issue, Ameen stated that the meeting held was to ensure corporations were on track with their allocations and funding requests.
She clarified that shortfalls in critical areas were due to the “previous government providing insufficient allocations to cover expenses such as wages, cost of living allowance (COLA), scavenging and other day-to-day operational needs.”
The minister said, “In some cases, corporations had received up to five months less of their required funding.”
Ameen stated discussions in the meeting focused on strategies to cover shortfalls and to determine how to best secure additional support to maintain core services.
She said, “Projects have not been stalled. The claim made by Guardian Media is entirely false. Municipal Corporations continue to implement development programmes and community initiatives.”
Ameen said, “The suggestion that the Ministry is relying on property tax revenue to roll out projects is a fabrication. The Ministry is maintaining the current budget with fiscal prudence and transparency, while correcting years of underfunding under the previous administration.”
