The Port-of-Spain City Corporation (POSCC) has failed to pay its civil servants for June after running out of budgeted funds for salaries, prompting Mayor Chinua Alleyne to warn that the fiscal crisis he predicted months ago has now become a reality.
“I warned the national community over two months ago that local government was heading for a fiscal fiasco. The fiscal fiasco is now here,” Alleyne said.
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According to Guardian Media, the corporation was unable to meet its June payroll obligations after the government instructed local authorities to pay civil servants’ back pay without providing additional funding to cover the increased costs.
Alleyne argued that the move reflected poor fiscal planning.
“As a result, the Port-of-Spain Corporation does not have enough allocation to pay civil servant salaries this month, and we have no allocation to pay salaries for July, August and September,” he said.
The mayor has appealed to the Minister of Rural Development and Local Government and the Minister of Finance to urgently intervene and provide the funds needed to pay employees.
“I am calling on the Minister of Local Government and the Minister of Finance to take immediate action to provide salaries for our hardworking civil servants,” he said.
In a memorandum dated June 25, Chief Executive Officer Michael Johnson advised the Public Services’ Association Port-of-Spain Corporation Staff Side that civil servants should expect delays in receiving their June salaries because the corporation’s budget for salaries and cost-of-living allowances had been exhausted.
Johnson explained that the corporation lacks sufficient budgetary allocations to meet salary commitments from June through the remainder of the financial year unless supplemental funding is approved.
He said requests for additional funding had already been submitted as part of the Mid-Year Budget Review and that the corporation is awaiting approval and the release of funds from the Ministry of Finance through the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government.
Johnson added that discussions with the ministry’s Permanent Secretary are ongoing in an effort to expedite the funding process and reduce the impact on employees.
The development has intensified concerns over the financial health of local government bodies in Trinidad and Tobago and raises uncertainty over whether civil servants at the corporation will receive their salaries on time for the remainder of the fiscal year unless emergency funding is secured.
