"PNM de­ceit!"

That's the ac­cu­sa­tion now lev­elled against Port-of-Spain May­or Ray­mond Tim Kee and the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) af­ter Tim Kee's ex­pect­ed res­ig­na­tion failed to ma­te­ri­alise yes­ter­day.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says Tim Kee may use the sup­port of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion Coun­cil and oth­er peo­ple which he re­ceived yes­ter­day as a ba­sis to try and re­main as may­or.

Ra­goonath said: "Based on what Tim Kee said on so­cial me­dia that he has more work to be done, Tim Kee may re­al­ly not be ready to re­sign and prob­a­bly be­lieves he has the coun­cil's sup­port and can play the sit­u­a­tion to the max­i­mum and stay on."

For­mer city may­or Louis Lee Sing had said Tim Kee might use the coun­cil to "play his game."

He added: "That seems to have hap­pened if he hasn't re­signed yet. No­body in the coun­cil is push­ing for his res­ig­na­tion, so clear­ly he feels he has com­fort.

"Based on the Prime Min­is­ter's state­ment on Sun­day, he has made it clear there is suf­fi­cient grounds for Tim Kee to re­sign. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so said so. If Tim Kee does not re­sign, it will be up to the PNM par­ty to brace for what­ev­er comes be­yond that, as the pub­lic will not turn to Tim Kee. We'll have to wait and see whether the PNM may have to force Tim Kee to re­sign."

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar said: "Is this a care­ful­ly or­ches­trat­ed ma­noeu­vre by the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment to save the face of its trea­sur­er? If the may­or re­port­ed­ly did not sub­mit a let­ter to the coun­cil, what are they de­lib­er­at­ing? Why did the coun­cil re­port­ed­ly give him more time to de­cide?

"The burn­ing ques­tion here is whether the Port-of-Spain City Coun­cil is the prop­er body to re­ceive, con­sid­er and ac­cept such res­ig­na­tion. Un­der Sec­tion 25(1) of the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act, Chap 25:04, May­or Tim Kee may re­sign at any time as may­or and as an al­der­man by de­liv­er­ing his signed let­ter to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the cor­po­ra­tion.

The Port-of-Spain City Coun­cil has no role in law in re­ceiv­ing, con­sid­er­ing or ac­cept­ing his res­ig­na­tion as may­or or as an al­der­man." (GA)