COUNCILLOR Bishram Kuppen feels that the administration at City Hall is deliberately preventing two of his motions dealing with financial issues from engaging the council, especially because those motions have the potential to raise serious questions in relation to financial irregularities at the municipality.One of the motions concerns a forensic audit and the other calls for detailed financial statements on expenditure.

At the council’s statutory meeting on Monday, Kuppen again rose to inform acting Mayor Sherod Duncan, who was presiding over the meeting, and fellow councillors that it was now the third time that Town Clerk Royston King had not allowed the motions to reach the council. Kuppen said that on both previous occasions the Town Clerk had responded that the motions were wrongly worded and had to be properly redone.

Kuppen said he has had someone with a legal background peruse the motions; and now that he has submitted them for the third time, he has received no response, and was therefore expecting to see them brought to the council on Monday.

At this point, acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry-Munroe informed that, to her knowledge, the motions had been improperly done.

“The Deputy Town Clerk’s response to me today indicates to me that she is essentially repeating a custom response to me,” Kuppen commented to this newspaper following the statutory meeting.

Kuppen has said that ever since the new council was established, councillors have not received any detailed report of expenditure.

“I don’t understand how new councillors can get a grip of the situation of this council unless we have a full report of what is being spent. We have no details on how money is being spent, but yet the council is constantly bringing to the full council requests for additional fees, like container fees, parking meters, etc. I don’t think any right thinking citizen or any right thinking councillor should be supporting anything like this until we get a report on how money is being spent. I think they are simply stalling; they do not want these motions to go through. At this stage, I think they are deliberately preventing me from moving those motions,” he declared.

Kuppen has said he is not interested in arguing or fighting with anyone, but he believes he has a just request. “The city needs it,” he offered.