Yvonne Webb

Dr Navi Mu­radali was yes­ter­day of­fi­cial­ly sworn in as May­or of San Fer­nan­do. The of­fice of may­or be­came a hot top­ic, threat­en­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, when for­mer May­or Mar­lene Coudray switched al­le­giance from the COP to be­come a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). Many in the COP felt Coudray should have re­signed as may­or, which would have hand­ed Mu­radali the may­oral chain, since he was the deputy may­or.

But she re­fused, spark­ing weeks of ac­ri­mo­nious de­bate be­tween the PP Gov­ern­ment and the COP. The stormy re­la­tion­ship be­tween some coun­cil­lors and the for­mer la­dy may­or was again ev­i­dent yes­ter­day, when one of her strongest crit­ics, Coun­cil­lor Dar­ren Mc Leod, jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty to move the mo­tion to ac­cept her let­ter of res­ig­na­tion, af­ter it was read by CEO De­o­dath Ra­goo­bar.

Coudray, who was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment last Fri­day, was not present. Mu­radali, in his in­au­gur­al speech, thanked Coudray for her con­tri­bu­tion,con­grat­u­lat­ed her on the ap­point­ment to the Cab­i­net and ex­pressed re­gret at the re­cent loss of her daugh­ter Michelle Coudray-Greaves, who was mur­dered in Ja­maica ear­li­er in the month.

The swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny was not with­out in­ci­dent, as Mu­radali was in­tro­duced as may­or even be­fore the may­oral chain was placed up­on his shoul­ders. Al­so, no new al­der­man was ap­point­ed, as list­ed on the agen­da. Coun­cil­lor An­tho­ny Ramkissoon ex­plained that Mu­radali should have tak­en his seat as coun­cil­lor for Les Ef­forts West/Cipero and, af­ter Coudray's let­ter of res­ig­na­tion was ac­cept­ed and he was ap­point­ed, t should have been in­tro­duced as may­or and tak­en up his po­si­tion.

Ramkissoon al­so point­ed out that May­or Mu­radali should have de­ferred the ap­point­ments for an­oth­er day, to give way to the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan, who was at the meet­ing, and oth­ers. The ap­point­ment of a deputy may­or and al­der­men is sched­uled for next Wednes­day.

In his ad­dress, Mu­radali said he was hum­bled by his ap­point­ment, and recom­mit­ted him­self to serv­ing all the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do. He has set aside Tues­day to deal with mem­bers of the pub­lic from 8 am. Mu­radali said un­der his guid­ance, the coun­cil would be­come an "ac­tion coun­cil."

"We cer­tain­ly must com­plete what we start­ed. I would like to see the com­ple­tion of the many projects un­der­tak­en by this cor­po­ra­tion, some by this coun­cil and some by the pre­vi­ous one." He com­mit­ted to the start of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front De­vel­op­ment Project, in­clud­ing the pro­posed board­walk, be­fore the end of 2012, say­ing this would be one of the coun­cil's lega­cy projects.

He out­lined, as an­oth­er lega­cy project, a com­mit­ment to make San Fer­nan­do a green city, be­fore the end of his tenure next year. Mu­radali has al­so pro­posed a two-day work­shop to deal with is­sues such as park­ing, se­cu­ri­ty, traf­fic and va­grancy.

How­ev­er, CEO Ra­goo­bar said, "All plans we make are just plans." Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed by Ramkissoon, said on tak­ing of­fice, "Peo­ple talk about what they are go­ing to do and should do. But on the sec­ond day, words start eras­ing and what we get is not change, but ex­change."