Dear Editor
I HAVE read in the local press (Stabroek News 4/1/2019, Kaieteur news 7/1/2019) that the Local Government Commission is having problems with Ms. Carol Sooba.

According to those media reports, the chairman has asked her to recuse herself from the meetings dealing with the now discredited report of the Commission of Inquiry into operations of the Georgetown City Council. In my reading of this report, I have come to the conclusion that it is the most discredited report I have seen in a long time. It is so prejudiced against the officers of the council, so tainted by bias, personal interests, and so legally impaired, that it must be an embarrassment to the commission. How can a Local Government Commission accept such a report? The CoI report is the personal views and opinions of individuals about certain officers of the council.

Nevertheless, so far, two important truths have emerged from this entire saga: the first is that, as a commissioner, Ms. Sooba makes the commission inherently prejudiced against officers because she has a very sorry history with the council. Everyone knows about her disrespectful treatment of Mayor Hamilton Green, former prime minister of Guyana and his entire council; her battles with Mrs. Patricia Chase-Green and other councilors; court cases and the revocation of her appointment. Under her leadership, the nation’s capital was almost buried in garbage; a most disgraceful sight and a disgust to all Guyanese.

Yet, Ms. Sooba was appointed a commissioner on the Local Government Commission where she is expected to monitor and give oversight to the very organisation she had degraded. This is troubling, because obviously Ms. Sooba could be tempted to use her new position to settle scores and tidy up unfinished business with the council. Little wonder, that on a mere written statement by Ms. Sooba, the CoI (the very CoI that sat in judgement of the officers of the council) without even checking the facts or have her appear before it, recommended a fat pay package of millions of dollars for this goodly lady.

Immediately, there is conflict of interest, the likelihood of bias and an inability to be fair and objective, on the part of Ms. Sooba. Obviously, this is not only unacceptable, but also speaks volumes of the ethical underpinnings of this commissioner. The question is whether the chairman and other commissioners knew that she had contacted the CoI and put in a personal request for compensation from the council?

If they knew, then what was the collective view of the commission? If not, then how is it possible for one commissioner to have approached the CoI with a personal request or instruction? And how can anyone be sure that other instructions were not given behind the backs of the chairman and other commissioners, not only by Ms. Sooba, but also any other commissioner(s)? Indeed, there are more questions than answers.

Then, not surprisingly, Ms Sooba talks about fighting for her rights. I hope that the officers concerned are getting ready to fight for their rights, because their constitutional and basic human rights were violated. And just as Ms. Sooba can approach the courts, so too must every officer who feels aggrieved by the CoI.

Second, the fact that the chairman was forced to take a decision to ask Ms. Sooba to recuse herself from meetings dealing with the report, signals that something is terribly wrong with it. The question then is, what is wrong with the report?

On my reading of that report I realised that it is not a real report. It is based on facts and law, it is a badly written, convoluted document made up of statements based on hearsay. The recommendations are words conjured up to create a certain negative impression about the City Council and its officers; they are not linked to any finding.

The report assumes things and presents different outcomes of situations based on those faulty assumptions. Its presuppositions are not based on facts, but on personal opinions. Just one example: the report talks about competencies, but it does not say by what instrument or tool officers’ competencies were measured, and by whom. But competency cannot be based on one man’s personal opinion of an individual’s work performance; opinions are subjective, biased and many times unfair, particularly if there are preconceive ideas about those whose competencies are being judged. Competencies must be fairly and properly measured, based on various relevant indicators, both departmentally and organisationally.

There are many more examples that point to the poverty of this report, the lack of proper procedures, disregard of the Municipal and District Councils Act, Cap 28:01, of basic elementary systems of analyses, biases and its general disqualification.

Regards
Timothy Davison