Dumas: More transparency needed in Local Government

LOCAL Government Minister Rennie Dumas yesterday declared that greater transparency was needed in the operations of Trinidad and Tobago’s 14 Local Government bodies and this is what the ministry was seeking to achieve through the ongoing Local Government reform process. Speaking at a news conference at Kent House, Maraval, Dumas said while Central Government officials were exposed to the full scrutiny of the national community, the same could not be said of their counterparts in Local Government.

He described activity within these corporations as “obscure” and nobody knew what transpired “unless we read the reports and the minutes.” Dumas lamented that “60 percent of the citizenry” did not know who represented them at the local government level. He said there was no current conflict over the responsibilities of the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), CEPEP and Local Government bodies and this differentiation was factored into the Local Government reform process.