Richard Lord

While Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lors in the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion are de­mand­ing a spe­cial meet­ing with May­or Louis Lee Sing to ex­press their lack of con­fi­dence in him, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the mat­ter "does not re­quire the fire brigade."

The coun­cil­lors, led by Deputy May­or Keron Valen­tine, who rep­re­sents North Port-of-Spain, and Bel­mont South coun­cil­lor, Jen­nel Young, de­mand­ed the meet­ing with Lee Sing af­ter the con­tents of a let­ter he wrote to par­ty chair­man Franklin Khan was made pub­lic in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day.

The con­tents of the let­ter were re­vealed by the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, dur­ing the de­bate on the Op­po­si­tion's no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The T&T Guardian re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly yes­ter­day the coun­cil­lors were up­set by Lee Sing's let­ter which stat­ed in part: "The par­ty is un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and if you are per­ceived to be part of a ca­bal, con­cern­ing pri­mar­i­ly cast­ing out Man­ning demons, all of us are in trou­ble.

"Let me say there was a time I, like oth­ers, held out hope for a new, mod­ern pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach in han­dling all of the par­ty's af­fairs but the events of the last cou­ple months sug­gest to me the lead­er­ship of our par­ty has elect­ed to pur­sue an out­dat­ed, ar­cha­ic and less than de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ap­proach to the gov­er­nance of the par­ty."

Lee Sing's let­ter con­tin­ued: "As I look as our par­ty limps along with­in the Par­lia­ment, it has much to do with Dr Row­ley's cred­i­bil­i­ty as he is un­able to take the risk in de­vel­op­ing the track record of the par­ty." Lee Sing asked Khan: "Could you ad­vise me what were the per­suad­ing ar­gu­ments pre­sent­ed to in­form a de­ci­sion to move a vote of no con­fi­dence in the Prime Min­is­ter?"

Ques­tioned for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day on the mat­ter, yes­ter­day, Row­ley said he was dis­ap­point­ed but felt the mat­ter "did not re­quire call­ing the fire brigade." He said the coun­cil­lors were ex­pect­ed to raise the mat­ter as they "can and will dis­cuss cor­po­ra­tion busi­ness." Row­ley said the par­ty could dis­cuss the mat­ter as it saw fit but there was no need for an ur­gent meet­ing to dis­cuss it.

He said the Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ued to fo­cus on serv­ing the in­ter­est of the wider na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion. Mean­while, Young said May­or Lee Sing's let­ter was one of the ma­jor rea­sons they were seek­ing his re­moval. She said Lee Sing was told at a re­cent meet­ing if he did not re­sign, the coun­cil­lors would move a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in him. Young added: "He said, well, if that is what you all want, go right ahead, I am go­ing to fight you."

She said she then told the may­or: "We don't need that. This is not what we want. We are a coun­cil. We al­ways sup­port you. Why don't you just re­sign and move out with dig­ni­ty?" She said the may­or re­ject­ed that re­quest and re­it­er­at­ed his in­ten­tion to chal­lenge his re­moval. Young said the coun­cil­lors were in­sist­ing that Lee Sing step down as may­or.

When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Young lat­er, she said: "I am not al­lowed to speak to the me­dia about the mat­ter again." Com­ment­ing on the mat­ter yes­ter­day Op­po­si­tion MP for Laven­tille West, Nile­ung Hy­po­lite, said: "Some­body was set on mak­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader and the PNM par­ty look bad." He was con­fi­dent the par­ty had the re­quired re­sources and struc­ture to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter and re­solve it.

Mean­while, par­ty sources are ques­tion­ing whether the coun­cil­lors can legal­ly de­bate the mat­ter at the cor­po­ra­tion. They said the cor­rect pro­ce­dure was for the par­ty's Gen­er­al Coun­cil to deal with the mat­ter, not the cor­po­ra­tion.