ACTING Town Clerk, Carol Sooba yesterday in response to the staging of a funeral for her by persons whom she said were instigated by Mayor Hamilton Green, Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and APNU Member of Parliament Annette Ferguson, was nothing but a cheap political gimmick.

Asked how the persons were able to gain access to the compound following Tuesday’s beefing up of security at City Hall, the acting Town Clerk said that there was a meeting between the Chief Constable and constabulary officers at the Water Street complex which saw fewer officers on duty at City Hall.
She said that the meeting which was originally scheduled to be held on Tuesday was put off owing to the development at the Council’s premises on Tuesday; and because the ranks were away yesterday the persons whom she named took advantage of the situation.
Sooba said that when the disruptive persons entered the compound she was engaged in a financial meeting in the council chambers chaired by Oscar Clark. The persons walked into the compound in the company of the Mayor bearing a small coffin measuring some four feet with an effigy inside purportedly of her, Sooba recalled.
“They had flowers and they were singing lustily [sic] as they conducted their ceremony about two feet away from the stairs and they don’t even know the hymns they were singing. When was Janet time they came with an effigy and they beat the hell out of that doll and put it in the coffin and now they want to do the same thing to me,” Sooba recalled.
The Town Clerk believes that the operations of the persons who usually contest her leadership at City Hall are encouraged by persons from HGPTV Nightly News. Asked why such an assertion, Sooba said that personnel from that media entity were present prior to the arrival of the team of persons who were performing the bogus funeral exercise.
She said that when it was realised what was happening in the compound, ranks who were at the training session were updated about the situation and quickly rushed over to the location. Upon seeing the constables the persons broke up the gathering and according to Sooba, some exited the back entrance with the coffin in hand while others went up to the Mayor’s office where a press conference was reportedly held.
Sooba told the Chronicle that the actions of those persons, especially the Mayor, his deputy and several other councillors do send a very bad signal to the young people who are following the issues through the media because their minds are being confused.
She said that had the persons committing these acts had any love for the city and by extension the young people of the country, their actions would have been different. She told the Chronicle that the time being wasted to seek political points and mileage coupled with cussing her out for hours rather than engaging in meaningful deliberations at council meetings, could have been better spent lifting the city out of the sorry state Hamilton Green and his following have allowed it to degenerate to over the years.
“They cannot be any influence to young people and some of them that end up in parliament should not have even been there in the first place,” Sooba related. She called for an immediate probe into the reason for the dismissal of Annette Ferguson from the Guyana Post Office Corporation.
The Town Clerk (ag) concluded by saying that the actions of the Mayor and his following amount to radicalism as she stated that never in the history of the City Council has any person of African descent suffered the trials and tribulations she has been going through with the council.
“They racial no other black Town Clerk went through what I am going through, you have to be black to hold the position of Town Clerk,” Carol Sooba told the Guyana Chronicle.

(By Leroy Smith)