“I will not dance to the music of Mayor Green” – Sooba – Green accused of asking Sooba to write-off Gy$90M debt owed to the Council by his wife’s business

Embattled City Mayor Hamilton Green is currently contemplating his next move, following the refusal of the Local Government Ministry to remove acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba with immediate effect, and amid growing criticism of his lack of proper stewardship at the helm of a city continuously filled with garbage along many major streets.
Green is also continuing to defend an earlier instruction he gave for Sooba to write-off of a Gy$9 million debt owed to the council by his wife’s business – ‘Jelante Pharmacy’.

Sooba said that the Jelante Pharmacy, owned by Green’s wife Dr Jennifer Basdeo Green, has never paid rates and taxes.
The two city officials have been at loggerheads for weeks and last Thursday, the mayor headed a protest in front of the Local Government Ministry calling for the immediate removal of Sooba. However, Green’s action has been viewed as a distraction. He has been accused of rank incompetence, presiding over a financially-retarded City Hall and garbage infested Georgetown, while shunning calls from practically every quarter of the city to resign. A former president had contended that Green has long outlived his usefulness.
Green has claimed that the problem with Sooba stemmed from a recent incident where he had advised her to arrange a meeting with staffers to discuss the restoration of Georgetown. But the acting town clerk said the meeting called by the mayor was irrelevant, and that similar meetings have been used in the past to fulfil his own political agenda.
Meanwhile, commenting on the mayor’s request for the town clerk to write off the Gy$9M owed by his wife’s business, Sooba made it clear that she will not engage in any illegal activity.
“He wrote me… and requested that I deal with the taxes, because he wanted to have some exemption as he claimed on behalf of the doctor, his wife, because it’s not justifiable for him to pay,” Sooba said as she showed a letter written by Green on the matter to this publication.
The acting town clerk declined offering any exemption to the mayor’s wife, noting that she will have no part in any illegal activity.
“The mayor being a former prime minister and mayor would know that there is no provision in law that would allow me to do so. I advised him to contact the minister of local government on the matter,” she said.
The local government ministers, Ganga Persaud and Norman Whittaker, have been formally apprised.
It was after her refusal to adhere to the mayor’s request, Sooba alleged that he started a ruckus in the municipality. According to the town clerk, Green’s recent move to increase call for her to demit office is just a tactic being used to distract the cash-strapped municipality from the bigger picture, noting that the vendors are just being used to fulfil his own need.
According to her, the mayor would use meetings and other forums for his own political agenda, such as to criticise the government and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). She made it clear that she will not be fulfilling such requests in the future if they do not have merit.

Turning to the issue of street vending, Sooba reflected that in 2000, Chief Justice Desiree Bernard had ruled that vending along the pavement of Water Street was illegal. Additionally, she pointed out that acting Chief Justice Carl Singh had also ruled on the matter.
“For Mayor Green to be holding these meetings inviting the vendors and to tell them they must sell, but to keep a black bag is totally against the by-laws and order of the council. And I can’t allow the staff, when the meetings are political in nature, to cuss the government out,” said Sooba.
Sooba said since her appointment, she has been trying earnestly to bring the municipality up to speed with the aim of better serving the residents of the city, but the mayor and his clique of councillors have been very reluctant.
“I have taken office about nine months and I have been trying with the staff to turn the organisation around financially, so that we can lift this city from the slump that I inherited,” Sooba noted.
She has pledged to be a prudent manager who has the best interests of the city and its people at heart, and said she will not dance to the music of the mayor.