The Corriverton Interim Management Committee (IMC) Town Clerk, Narendra Sookram, was yesterday handed a petition by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) signed by over 600 persons from Corriverton calling for the dissolution of the IMC, deeming the body illegal and unconstitutional.
When contacted today, Minister of Local Government, Ganga Persaud, speaking to this newspaper via telephone from Georgetown, said that “I am unaware of what happened (APNU going into Corriverton on Friday) but my response is very clear: then it is illegal for Mr (Ronald) Bulkan and his team going in to threaten any Town Clerk and deem anything illegal. The IMC is legal and is operating legally. Bulkan’s actions are certainly not in keeping with any legality at all and the town clerk must be advised very clearly that he or she takes no directions or instructions from no other than the Ministry of Local Government and that’s not rocket science”.
Member of Parliament of the ruling Party, Faizal M. Jaffarally has stated that Local Government elections “are long overdue in this country and the PPP administration would like to go to the polls tomorrow and we are prepared as a government and political party to go to the polls tomorrow”. He said that unfortunately the political opposition in parliament has been going to and fro “making all sorts of demands because probably they are not ready”. He said “let us go to the elections and afterwards, we can probably decide, you know, what you want and what you don’t want because right now, the residents of New Amsterdam and in Georgetown also, we all know what is happening in GT and in many NDC’s and we need to congratulate and thank the people who have served, but it has been too long, some have migrated, some have died, some have run out of ideas so we need new people with creative ideas because this is an evolving society in which we live and you know, we
need new thinking, so that we can have properly- functioning municipalities and NCD’s”.
APNU’s Bulkan, in speaking with Stabroek News, stated that the APNU team comprised of former Corriverton Councillor, Ms Mac Donald, Everette Harewood, Verna Lyken, Jagdip Persaud, Fitz O’ Brien and Dr Rishee Thakur of the APNU Secretariat.
The party, he said, is highly concerned at the series of events that has been unfolding in the Corriverton municipality over the few weeks, and made special reference to the spate of newspaper articles about the ousting of former Corriverton mayor, Roy Baijnauth.
Baijnauth and his councillors were evicted from office in May and were given no formal notification by the relevant authorities. Baijnauth had said that he was disappointed in the manner in which the entire procedure of choosing an IMC was carried out. He stated that all he received was an ordinary fax titled ‘Public Notice’ informing his (former) town clerk of the names of the new persons on the IMC. The current IMC has 12 members.
