In­cum­bent chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Ter­ry Ron­don re­tained his ti­tle un­der con­tro­ver­sial cir­cum­stances yes­ter­day, as the cor­po­ra­tion swore in its new ex­ec­u­tive.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress coun­cil­lors and al­der­men walked out of the cer­e­mo­ny af­ter Ron­don used his de­cid­ing vote as chair­man, thus giv­ing him two votes in the process, to break the 4-4 tie in the cor­po­ra­tion be­tween the UNC and the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment.

There were signs yes­ter­day's pro­ceed­ing would not go well from ear­ly on af­ter Ron­don en­tered the cer­e­mo­ny with the chair­man's chain around his neck and pro­ceed­ed to chair the pro­ceed­ings in­stead of cor­po­ra­tion CEO An­gela Guer­ra.

UNC coun­cil­lor Nir­mal Singh ob­ject­ed on the ground that as an out­go­ing chair­man, Ron­don had to al­low the CEO to take con­trol of the pro­ceed­ing. He was sup­port­ed by coun­cil­lor Ken­wyn Phillip.

Singh ques­tioned Ron­don about his tak­ing con­trol of the cer­e­mo­ny and asked un­der what sec­tion of the Mu­nic­i­pal Act he had the au­thor­i­ty to do so. But Ron­don said he had full au­thor­i­ty un­der chap­ter 15 of the Mu­nic­i­pal Act.

Ron­don then called for the nom­i­na­tion of a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to take con­trol, but UNC coun­cil­lors again ob­ject­ed, say­ing this was the du­ty of the CEO.

UNC sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen, who was present, then stood up and asked his coun­cil­lors and al­der­men to walk out, which they com­plied with.

How­ev­er, the walk-out did not hin­der the process as a chair­man and vice chair­men and com­mit­tees were then elect­ed by the PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Ron­don said he was very dis­ap­point­ed at the walk-out by the UNC coun­cil­lors and al­der­men, not­ing he had spo­ken to them on the way for­ward for San­gre Grande. He promised to car­ry out his du­ties with ded­i­ca­tion, adding he will be "work­ing for all the peo­ple and not par­ty."

He warned his new coun­cil­lors to show re­spect for all peo­ple and for­get the par­ty pol­i­tics.

"We are here to serve the peo­ple and this is what we must do," Ron­don said.

Ron­don said what­ev­er the out­come of pend­ing UNC ac­tion over yes­ter­day's pro­ceed­ings, he would "leave it in the hands of the Lord."

Al­so speak­ing on the is­sue of pro­to­col, deputy PNM leader and Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Ro­han Sinanan, told T&T Guardian that the chair­man re­mains the chair­man and this was in the new Mu­nic­i­pal Act.

"The old act was re­pealed some­time in 2013. Ron­don was right when he quot­ed Sec­tion 15:2 of the Mu­nic­i­pal Act," he said.

Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter Of­fice Stew­art Young al­so said the law was clear and Ron­don act­ed un­der Sec­tion 67:2 of the Mu­nic­i­pal Act, which gives him the right and priv­i­lege to pre­side and have the cast­ing vote where there is a tie, as was the case in San­gre Grande. He said he was very dis­sat­is­fied at what he saw from the UNC.

"It seems that this is the mantra of the UNC - they walked out in Par­lia­ment and to­day they walked out in San­gre Grande," Young said, adding he would now wait to see how yes­ter­day's walk­out would af­fect the cor­po­ra­tion's op­er­a­tions.

RALPH BAN­WARIE