Mayor: Garbage collection funding cut by $3M

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of re­duc­ing fund­ing for garbage col­lec­tion and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment projects, ar­gu­ing that in­creas­es high­light­ed in the 2027 Bud­get are large­ly be­ing used to cov­er back­pay oblig­a­tions rather than im­prove ser­vices for res­i­dents.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing at City Hall, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day night, Al­leyne said claims that mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions had re­ceived in­creased al­lo­ca­tions were mis­lead­ing, as much of the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing was ear­marked for salary set­tle­ments and wage agree­ments.

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Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers, the may­or sought to ex­plain the dif­fer­ence be­tween re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture and de­vel­op­ment spend­ing, ar­gu­ing that on­ly one of those cat­e­gories di­rect­ly trans­lates in­to im­prove­ments in com­mu­ni­ties.