Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co led all re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in prop­er­ty tax rev­enue over the past 15 months, col­lect­ing over $23 mil­lion ($23,245,091.33 to be ex­act) be­tween Feb­ru­ary 29, 2024 and May 20, 2025. It al­so record­ed the high­est num­ber of pay­ments: 22,604.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence. Trinidad and To­ba­go col­lect­ed over $135 mil­lion ($135,624,609.72) in prop­er­ty tax­es dur­ing the pe­ri­od. The to­tal as­sessed val­ue across the coun­try was $195.8 mil­lion, mean­ing the gov­ern­ment re­cov­ered just un­der 70 per cent of what was owed.

But now Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ques­tion­ing how that mon­ey was spent, say­ing, “$135.6 mil­lion col­lect­ed. Again, I said I warned peo­ple don’t pay it. You de­cide to pay, that is on you. The last gov­ern­ment col­lect­ed this prop­er­ty tax. To­day, I want to ask Faris Al-Rawi and oth­ers in that gov­ern­ment, what did you do with the mon­ey you col­lect­ed for the prop­er­ty tax? What have you done with the mil­lions that you col­lect­ed from prop­er­ty tax?”