Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

WITH JUST four days until the local government elections, it’s been interesting to observe the debates.

First is contestation over the purpose of local government elections. The PNM tried to run a platform focused on legislative, administrative and financial reform of local government, but that was not clearly connected to how this will improve those things that people consider the responsibility of regional corporations.

In popular mind there’s great confusion about the responsibilities of local government versus central government or the MP for the area or the minister in Cabinet. Who is responsible for fixing potholes and paving roads? Who is responsible for poor water supply to communities which may get water once or twice a week, or not for weeks at all? Would the average person know more clearly after this campaign?

One problem is that governance operates in what Lloyd Best would call “governor mode,” meaning that all power is seen to stem from the top, so the PM is considered responsible for fixing every bread-and-butter issue.

Local government should focus on household and community-level concerns – water provision, clean streets, watercourse maintenance, fields and playgrounds, road paving and garbage collection. Yet newspapers are typically full of descriptions of under-resourced regional corporations unable to meet these needs.

Governor-mode governance also means that power coheres at the top and, when things are working, it is ministers who take credit as parties seek to attach ministers’ personal brand (and photo) to successful works. A PM surrounded by ministers will therefore show up to cut the ribbon to a small roundabout, just as people want to see MPs and ministers on the ground in boots in a flood.

Reform is necessary. There are ten pillars in the reform plan – security and funding, executive authority, new responsibilities, local contractors, more effective municipal policing, developmental control, infrastructure works, disaster management, involvement of civil society and regional development plans – but the PNM’s constant bashing of the UNC as being either corrupt or doing nothing while in government, as well as the PM’s own violent style of insult, has often detracted from headlines that a legitimate reform campaign should have received. This was a lost opportunity.

The UNC has focused on tax and crime and is treating the local government elections as a lead-up to a general election. Opposition parties can be particularly successful this way because there are often so many sitting-government failures to which to point.

Property tax should be collected, as failure to collect such taxes benefits the richest with multiple properties exponentially more than it burdens one family with a small house. There were public concerns about the details of the collection plan and how property value would be measured.

Still, advocating for no property tax at all is simply irresponsible. The UNC could have spent time on the details, critiquing what was propose