Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC says the creation of three new municipalities is necessary to bring local government boundaries in line with how communities have evolved.
The Government is proposing new municipalities in Barataria, St Augustine and Couva under the Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which is due to come before the House of Representatives this week.
In a statement on Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar said the move would help create a fairer and more equitable local government system, noting that municipal boundaries have remained largely unchanged for decades despite population shifts, community growth and development across the country.
“The result is a system with significant disparities, where some municipalities serve much larger and growing populations while operating within boundaries established decades ago. This Bill seeks to address these inequalities by creating new municipalities, adjusting boundaries and ensuring that Local Government better reflects the communities it serves.”
The Prime Minister defended the introduction of the Bill, saying every citizen, regardless of where they live, deserves fair representation, adequate resources and efficient services.
“These reforms are about equity, fairness and modernising Local Government to meet the realities of Trinidad today. Everyone knows that Local Government has been underperforming for years. Service delivery is poor and citizens are not getting value for money. By increasing the number of Municipal Corporations from 14 to 17, we will improve the efficiency of service delivery to citizens, including building inspections, development approvals, the cleaning of watercourses and built infrastructure, insect control and other essential services.”
Mrs Persad-Bissessar said this will mean more staff to serve citizens, a more equitable distribution of financial resources and strengthened supervisory oversight of Local Government workers.
“We have 13,000 people employed in Local Government, but after 10 am we can hardly see anyone working outside. Citizens are fed up with it and the Government is fed up with it. This has to change. Further, we have hundreds of thousands of people sitting in traffic every day for six hours to get into and out of Port of Spain. By creating these new boroughs and a new city, we are laying the foundation to increase public and private investment and development in these areas. We intend to expand these centres and move some Government and private-sector services out of Port of Spain and into these areas, thereby reducing the daily traffic burden into the capital.”
The Prime Minister said these changes are about people, not politics, and that “people have been suffering for too long”.
She said it is time to make changes and that her Government is “building a Local Government system that works for all the people”.