
Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner and Chaguanas mayor Orlando Nagessar have criticised the Government for staying too long to open the new Chaguanas borough hall—more than one year after winning the general election. Both levelled criticisms on Thursday night, during the corporation’s champions awards ceremony held at the auditorium of the new borough hall. The award ceremony paid tribute to sportsmen in Chaguanas. Also honoured were Emeralda Sports Club and Montrose Government School.
Nagessar told guests that borough officials were “squatting” in the auditorium. “We have been asking month after month what is the problem,” he said. Nagessar said the building was deteriorating. He said he had been asking questions through various MPs in the borough why the Chaguanas Borough Corporation cannot open the building and occupy it. Warner said burgesses were getting angry because they could not get employment at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation. He later told the media that an order passed by the PNM in 2008 blocked regional bodies from hiring staff.
“I find it difficult to accept the fact that in Chaguanas, for example, that neither the mayor nor a councillor for over a year has been able to employ a single person.” “In two years time they are having elections, what will they tell the burgesses in Chaguanas...therefore we have to go back to see what is the genesis of this problem. “If the problem is because the PNM in 2008 passed some directive not to employ anybody in the regional corporations, I want to know. “If that is the case we have to go back to Cabinet to get that changed. “People are getting angry, they have nothing to do...They have no income.
“They have no Caroni anymore, how will they survive, and that is my concern.” Warner said he would be taking the matter further with the Minister of Local Government. He said the new borough hall was being delayed because of bureaucracy. He said when he asked he was told a fence was being put in and they were now accessing furniture which would take another two to four weeks. Warner said the Government must find a way to correct the problems.
