For­mer min­is­ter of rur­al de­vel­op­ment and lo­cal gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi has added his voice to mount­ing con­cerns over fund­ing short­falls across cor­po­ra­tions, call­ing on cur­rent min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen to “wake up.”

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of lo­cal gov­ern­ment fi­nances, ac­cus­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of un­der­fund­ing cor­po­ra­tions and al­low­ing in­fra­struc­ture and ser­vices to de­te­ri­o­rate.

“What I can tell you about lo­cal gov­ern­ment is the sav­agery that’s go­ing on in San Fer­nan­do and Tu­na­puna,” he said. “The fool­ish­ness that Khadi­jah Ameen is speak­ing about, ‘stop par­ty­ing’, what rub­bish are we talk­ing about?”