No Fete on Borrowed Money? Then Why Cut the Funding and Act Shocked by the Bills?

The No Fete on Borrowed Money lecture might make for a nice soundbite, but plenty citizens listening to Minister Khadijah Ameen likely had the same question: if your government controls the purse, cuts allocations, delays relief, and publicly warns corporations they getting “not a cent more,” then why are you acting shocked that the bills piling up? That is the heart of this bacchanal. The issue is not simply that regional corporations owe money. The issue is that the very administration with responsibility for financing and supporting them is now trying to shame them for drowning. Ameen herself said total debt across corporations could be as high as $1 billion, with some bodies months behind on payments and Tunapuna/Piarco alone owing around $30 million for scavenging services.

Let us be real. Municipal corporations are not corner shops. They are arms of the State expected to collect garbage, clean drains, maintain roads, cut grass, support public events, and keep communities functioning. When these bodies cannot pay contractors, the public does not just see numbers on a spreadsheet. They smell the uncollected garbage, drive on the neglected roads, and watch simple community services start to buckle. So when Ameen says, in effect, “don’t throw a fete if you owe money,” the line lands less like responsible governance and more like a government mocking institutions it has helped squeeze.

No Fete on Borrowed Money, But Who Holding the Wallet?

This is where the politics gets hard to ignore. In January 2026, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar publicly declared that regional corporations would get “not a cent more” unless taxpayers saw better results, while insisting that the $2.1 billion allocated to local government was already “more than enough.” That statement matters because it kills the convenient excuse that all of this is just inherited chaos from the past. Once you say no extra funding is coming, you own what follows. You cannot lock the tap and then hold a press conference to ask why the bucket empty.

And then there is the part that makes this story politically explosive. Reporting after the 2026 budget showed that all seven PNM-controlled corporations received lower allocations than they had the previous year, with cuts ranging from hundreds of thousands to just over $9 million. At the same time, several UNC-controlled corporations received increases, including Chaguanas, Mayaro/Rio Claro, Penal/Debe, Princes Town, and others. CNC3 also reported that even while Ameen defended the overall totals by arguing PNM corporations still got more money in aggregate, the complaint from those corporations was specifically about cuts to their own recurrent allocations compared with the prior fiscal year.

That is why this cannot be brushed aside as routine opposition grumbling. If the corporations you do not control are receiving less money, while the corporations on your side are seeing increases, then the public is entitled to ask whether this is budgeting or political punishment dressed up as fiscal discipline. And if those same underfunded corporations are then scolded in public for not having cash, the hypocrisy becomes impossible to miss.

You can’t hold the purse, choke the funding, and then act confused when the bills can’t get paid.

The Debt Story Is Real, But the Government Owns the Current Crisis

To be fair, not every dollar owed by corporations was created yesterday. Ameen said some debts stretch back years and that allocations approved in previous budgets were not always released. But that does not rescue the current administration. In fact, it makes their responsibility even greater. If you inherit a financially strained local government system, the obvious duty is to stabilise it, not deepen the strain and then laugh at the symptoms. A serious government would be talking about a transparent payment plan, equitable allocations, service-priority funding, and a timetable for clearing contractor arrears. Instead, the public got a line about fetes.

The consequences are already visible. In Point Fortin, Mayor Clyde James said Borough Day planning was under pressure because of financial strain, loss of sponsorship support, and insufficient help, with the corporation carrying debt from prior activities while still trying to keep celebrations alive. Separate reporting also noted outstanding debts from Borough Day 2025, Emancipation 2025 and Carnival 2025 hanging over the council. That is what this looks like on the ground: not abstract politics, but institutions juggling public obligations with one hand while dodging unpaid bills with the other.

And let us not miss the deeper insult here. The minister responsible for local government funding is effectively telling corporations to behave more responsibly while the Government’s own choices are making responsibility harder. That is like kneecapping a man in the morning and criticizing his limp in the afternoon. The administration wants citizens to focus on the arrears, not on who kept tightening the screws while demanding results. But people are not fools. They understand that when you reduce allocations, refuse top-ups, and then complain about poor delivery, you are not fixing the system. You are setting up a scapegoat.

This Is Not Fiscal Discipline. This Is Political Theatre

What makes this story so dangerous for the administration is that the message does not match the management. Fiscal discipline means consistent rules, transparent formulas, and fair treatment across corporations regardless of party colour. Political theatre is when you cut one side, boost another, grandstand about overspending, and then pretend the fallout is proof of incompetence by the people you just squeezed. The public can see the difference.

The Government may hope the phrase “No Fete on Borrowed Money” becomes the headline people remember. But the line that may stick longer is much simpler: they cut the funding and then acted shocked by the bills. That is the real story here. Not just old debt. Not just bad habits. A current administration trying to wash its hands of a crisis while still gripping the tap.

Because in the end, if corporations are broke, contractors unpaid, services under strain, and communities feeling the squeeze, then the people in charge of the money cannot escape the blame. They cannot starve the system and then accuse it of looking thin.

A government cannot underfund local government, refuse relief, and then pretend the collapse is somebody else’s fault.

This story is part of our wider Trinidad Politics Explained coverage. Explore the full hub for political analysis, key background, major controversies, and the latest updates.