THE monthly statutory meeting of the Regional Democratic Council of Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) broke up shortly after prayers were said on Thursday, further deepening tensions between the political representatives sitting on that local government body.
APNU+AFC Councillors walked out of the meeting after they said that they observed that the Regional Chairman Vickchand Ramphal had refused to apologise to the clerk of the council for being disrespectful to him in a matter involving reports about wrongdoing by PPP/C Councillors in the Bath/Woodley park Neighbourhood Democratic Council.
The impasse between the regional chairman and the Clerk of the Council, Ovid Morrison, began at the last statutory meeting of the council in April. The impasse was triggered by the response of Chairman Ramphal to allegations made against the chairman and the vice-chairman of the Bath/Woodley Park Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).
Earlier in that meeting, the AFC Councillor Abel Seetaram had made allegations that an excavator assigned to the NDC by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) to do work in the Bath/Woodley Park area had been commandeered by the chairman and vice-chairman and deployed to do work to benefit lands the duo intended to use for their personal benefit.
Seetaram had complained to the meeting that the two men had used the machine for several weeks to do work for their personal benefit even when parts of Bath Settlement were under floodwaters, because several drains were clogged up with garbage. He then said that himself and the REO Mr Ovid Morrison had observed the misuse of the machine first- hand and had intervened and demanded that it be used for the purpose for which it was sent to the area by the NDIA.
The two men Seetaram said complied with this demand but only briefly, since the machine was soon again observed to be engaged in work for their personal benefit. The trouble started when Ramphal described the allegation as “vicious,” prompting councillors to suggest to him that he appeared to be taking the sides of the chairman and vice-chairman of the PPP/C-controlled NDC.
The APNU+AFC Councillors said they grew stronger in suspicions of his lack of impartiality, when Councillor Seetaram offered to provide photographs of the misuse of the excavator and Ramphal rejected this evidence, reiterating that photographs could not be reliable and that he would need to do his own investigations.
Chairman Ramphal said that he had visited the area some time after and had seen much evidence of work done by the excavator for the benefit of the community, thereby prompting more accusations of being biased on behalf of the chairman and vice-chairman of the NDC with respect to the allegations of misuse of the excavator. At this point, Morrision objected to the trend of the discussion, saying that he had personally seen the misuse of the excavator and he felt that the “obvious skepticism” of the chairman on the report amounted to an attack on his integrity.
He declared: “I am not a liar and if this trend in the discussion [of] this matter continues, I will have to leave the meeting.” At this point Ramphal told him that he was free to go, prompting not only Morrison’s withdrawal from the meeting, but an uproar from the APNU+AFC councillors who accused him of being disrespectful to the REO. The councillors also stormed out of the meeting immediately after.
Following the meeting in April, Morrison said that he had written to the chairman requesting an apology from him for him imputing that he may be lying against the PPP/C NDC councillors. Ramphal refused to write that letter, hence the early break-up of the meeting yesterday.
Morrison said yesterday: “I set up the agenda where he would have a call to order. We had the prayer; the pledge; welcome and announcement. Announcement was a venue to address the issue. He announced announcements, I sat down and waited for him and just when he was about to say that there are no announcements I got up; I explained to the council that I have the greatest regards for members of the council and in no way would I try to insult them, but until the chairman so answers to my letter and comply with the contents of it, I will not be able to be clerk of his council. Then the APNU+AFC councillors all got up and walked out.”
In a comment on the impasse yesterday, Ramphal said that it was very unfortunate that for the second consecutive month, councillors from the AFC+APNU had staged a walk-out when there were many important issues in the region to be discussed. “I want to make it clear that at no time did I disrespect the clerk of the council or anyone; all that I was doing was calling for an investigation into the matter.”
He added that he was willing to engage with the REO to discuss the way forward on the matter. Morrison however insisted yesterday that he would not function as clerk of the meeting until and unless Ramphal provided him with a written apology for the disrespect shown to him as clerk of the council/regional executive officer at the last sitting of the RDC Statutory Meeting, as well as a verbal apology to members of the council for his conduct to Councillor Seetaram. This is the second time in recent months that the RDC meetings of Region Five have been disrupted, because of the alleged disrespect by the chairman for first the President of Guyana David Granger last year and now for disrespect of the REO.
