Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadija Ameen says Regional Corporations have for too long, not been doing all of the work they were designed to do.
Instead she says, CEPEP contracts were created and assigned tasks which fall under the responsibilities of the Regional Corporations.
It’s something she plans to address, by cutting out these contracts and better resourcing corporations.
Reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh tells us more.
00:00Formally under the Ministry of Local Government, CPEP contracts were assigned to cover much of the duties that fall under regional corporations, according to Line Minister Khadija Amin.
00:11Regional corporations have been systematically undermined by the last government because the work that they are supposed to do in terms of maintaining public spaces, infrastructure, building, developing, recreation, grounds, roads, drainage, pavements, they have been undermined by being deprived of resources while the money would have gone into CPEP and other areas to give friends and family contact.
00:36As a result, she says, corporations have been performing under par.
00:42And you will notice that with the suspension of CPEP, the areas that are suffering most are the areas that had the most amount of CPEP teams because the corporations would have been laid back and some of them are not as responsive as they should be to the public because they got so comfortable with someone else doing their work.
01:02With the investigation into CPEP ongoing, government, she says, will now refocus resources and efforts into local government to ensure continuity of services.
01:13So I call on all regional corporations to do what is our job.
01:18This is your job as regional corporations.
01:21And we intend to strengthen the corporations as we did with the flood mitigation, where we provided additional resources for them to clean and clear drains in the flood-grown areas.
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