A dis­pute has erupt­ed be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion over whether the cap­i­tal city has suf­fi­cient fund­ing to pay hun­dreds of mu­nic­i­pal work­ers.

This, af­ter Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen yes­ter­day dis­missed claims that the cor­po­ra­tion lacks the mon­ey to pay salaries, in­sist­ing the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready re­leased the nec­es­sary funds and ac­cus­ing the cor­po­ra­tion of “play­ing pet­ty pol­i­tics” with work­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ameen said she was shocked af­ter see­ing a memo cir­cu­lat­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer to the union rep­re­sent­ing month­ly-paid em­ploy­ees, warn­ing that salaries could not be paid.