Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Josi­ah Austin has re­ject­ed state­ments by Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, de­scrib­ing as “false and mis­lead­ing” the sug­ges­tion that cor­po­ra­tions are pri­ori­tis­ing cul­tur­al events over con­trac­tor pay­ments.

Austin’s re­sponse fol­lows Ameen’s warn­ing that mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions should avoid dis­cre­tionary spend­ing while car­ry­ing sig­nif­i­cant ar­rears, in­clud­ing her re­mark that they should “not throw a fete” while ow­ing mon­ey, as debts across the sys­tem ap­proach an es­ti­mat­ed $1 bil­lion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Austin said un­paid con­trac­tor bal­ances—par­tic­u­lar­ly for scav­eng­ing ser­vices—are a long­stand­ing is­sue root­ed in in­ad­e­quate fund­ing al­lo­ca­tions from cen­tral gov­ern­ment, rather than mis­man­age­ment at cor­po­ra­tion lev­el.