– Former Town Clerk to enjoy more powers on Local Gov’t Commission

By Derwayne Wills
CONTROVERSIAL former Town Clerk Carol Sooba will make her re-appearance in the local government system, but this time, her powers will extend to every local government body in the country.Sooba was recently named one of the nominees of the opposition People’s Progressive Party to the Local Government Commission.
Clement Rohee, the party’s General-Secretary, confirmed this with the Guyana Chronicle on Friday.
Sooba, appointed on December 2, 2013 after acing in the position for 16 months, emerged as a cantankerous figure owing to her brazen challenge of the entire Georgetown Mayor and City Council; she enjoyed the clout owing to the backing she received from the then PPP government.She was fired shortly after the new government took power in May, 2015.
Rohee said that former Local Government Ministers Norman Whittaker and Clinton Collymore were also named by the PPP.
The commission is provided for in the constitution, which dictates that it hold power to deal with all matters relating to regulation and staffing of local government organs in Guyana’s 10 administration regions.
Additionally, the Constitution says the commission can deal with conflicts within those local government organs, as well as conflicts between one local government body and the next.
“People see me as a person from this city, but I’m a person who widely knows this country,” former Town Clerk Sooba said in an invited comment to this newspaper on Saturday.
Sooba said she is confident that her 18 years of experience in the local government system will be an asset to the commission.
Of course, the former town clerk could not resist taking a few jabs at the current city administration, under her most vocal critic, Royston King, now Town Clerk.
“People are now realizing why I was treated the way I was treated,” Sooba said. “Compare me to what they are doing now with the parking meters. Examine my work, and see if I have [done] anything without the legal processes.”
Sooba said she is viewed as negative,only because of what happened with the City Council. “The PNC [People’s National Congress] know me well and don’t want to acknowledge who I am. People are now realizing why I was treated the way I was treated.”
“All that money they spent on those foolish things around the Merriman Mall, they should have spent on City Hall,” Sooba said, bemoaning the condition of the main building in the City Hall compound.
“Check to see how much hundreds of millions I left in the coffers. I had a zero tolerance that they couldn’t get their hands on the coffers,” Sooba added.
The former town clerk was the subject of many court proceedings as the City Council, preceding the 2016 local government election, had opted for her removal.
The Council, under the mayorship of Hamilton Green, felt that Sooba was a political appointee installed at the Council to deter its business, by former local government minister under the PPP administration, Norman Whittaker.
Sooba had been reduced by a court order to an Acting Town Clerk, since her appointment was made without the support of the Council.
Then Chief Justice Ian Chang, who issued the ruling, made clear that Whittaker had no power to appoint Sooba in the absence of the Local Government Commission.
The Commission provides for seven commissioners. That body strips the minister’s responsibility to appoint and remove local government officers whose positions are not made by election.
Three commissioners are nominated by the Leader of the Opposition; three by the President; and one by the minister responsible for local government.
Now that the PPP’s nominees are in the open, it is now for the David Granger administration to name its four nominees, but this could be realized soon.
“The government has its nominees, and they would be dealt with by Cabinet soon,” Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman told the press corps Thursday at a post-cabinet press briefing.
Trotman was filling in for Cabinet Secretary Joseph Hamilton, whom he said was unavailable.
President David Granger said recently on his weekly Public Interest programme that he expects the Local Government Commission to be set up at the end of the year.
The President hopes that the Commission could be included in the estimates for the annual budget expected to be presented in December, 2016.