00:00My information is that the 2009 bill, it is specific in that bill, and that bill was laid in this
00:11house by the People's National Movement, specifically making reference to making Shogonas a city.
00:20Opposition Leader Penelope Beckels in the House of Representatives, speaking about a key provision of the 2026 Municipal Corporation Bill,
00:28which Prime Minister Kamala Passat-Basasa later spoke about.
00:32Today, I think everybody wanted to speak for Shogonas. I am proud that this government, this UNS government, will give
00:39city status to Shogonas.
00:41In addition to establishing Shogonas as a city, the bill also varies the boundaries of the cities of Port of
00:48Spain and San Fernando, and the boroughs of Point Fortin and Arima.
00:52We no longer have a situation where, for the Arima Borough Corporation, where you had seven councillors, and as I
01:03recall, the allocation this year might have been somewhere around $17 million.
01:10For a new borough corporation with 60,000 persons, which is double, more than double the amount of what you
01:21have, the interesting thing is what sort of allocation would be made to a corporation now, like the Arima Borough
01:31Corporation.
01:32The Prime Minister defended her administration's amendments to the Municipal Corporations Act.
01:38What the figures show is that under the PNM, the last budget before losing office, the funds allocated in the
01:472025 government estimates gave several larger UNC-controlled corporations less money in total than smaller PNM-controlled corporations.
01:57Prime Minister Passat-Basasa gave another example of what she identified as the allocation of funding to municipal corporations under
02:04the previous PNM administration.
02:06The same amount given to Point Fortin with 20,000, about 20,000, same amount money given to Coover, Tabaki,
02:14Tabaro, with 178,000 people.
02:18That is inequality. That is inequity that we have to fix, and that is what they're trying to do today.
02:26The 2026 Municipal Corporations Bill, which is now on its way to the Senate, also seeks to establish the new
02:33boroughs of Barataria, Coover, and St. Augustine, and also upgrade Sandy Grandi to borough status.
02:41Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
02:42Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
