PM knocks poor work ethic at regional corporations

2026-01-25 - 21:09

PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is warning regional corporations they will not receive any additional state funding, and will only receive more in the next budget if service delivery is improved over the next eight months. She insists the $2.1 billion currently allocated to local government is “more than enough.” In a Facebook post on January 24, Persad-Bissessar said government would not provide “a cent more” to regional corporations unless taxpayers begin seeing tangible results, particularly in sanitation and basic infrastructure. She said for fiscal 2026, the seven PNM corporations will receive a combined $987.29 million, which was $181.83 million more than the $805.46 million allocated to the seven UNC-led corporations. Persad-Bissessar said despite the size of the workforce of 13,406 people and funding, citizens continue to experience poor sanitation and inadequate infrastructure maintenance. “Taxpayers are paying 13,406 persons in local government 2.1 billion dollars, however after 9 am you would be lucky to see the majority of them out working. That’s because signing the attendance book and returning home by 9 am has become entrenched policy across ALL corporations. “Scraping up small mounds of rubbish and sand for two hours to then leave on the sides of the roads to wash into the drains when rain falls is not a good use of taxpayers’ funds. “My government is not going to continue pumping billions yearly into these corporations while citizens continue suffering for basic sanitation and infrastructure services.” She compared their performance with teachers, health-care workers, protective services personnel and private-sector employees, who completed full eight-hour workdays. She warned that if service delivery does not improve, government will start outsourcing and mechanise many of the tasks currently performed by regional corporations. She also said government had already taken steps to stop wasteful spending, like cutting what she described as “Cepep and URP ghost gangs,” natural gas subsidies, and overpriced goods and services contracts. “Decent law-abiding citizens must get value for their taxes they pay from their hard-earned salaries. “The future of the regional corporations will be determined solely by the choices the 13,406 employees make in the next eight months. Step up or step aside, citizens deserve much better from local government corporations.”