Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­cil­lor for Kel­ly Vil­lage Samuel Sankar says he is still open to serv­ing. Ear­li­er this week Sankar an­nounced that he re­signed from the UNC but will con­tin­ue to serve out his term as an in­de­pen­dent. This, even as le­gal ex­perts state that the Privy Coun­cil’s May 18 rul­ing on lo­cal gov­ern­ment makes it clear that coun­cil­lors and al­der­men no longer have the au­thor­i­ty to hold of­fice in the re­gion­al and city cor­po­ra­tions.

The Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing in­val­i­dat­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to ex­tend the term of lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives by a year.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Sankar said, “I took a de­ci­sion and I stood my ground and that was putting coun­try first and serv­ing my burgess­es where that was al­ways and has al­ways been my pri­or­i­ty. That was my num­ber one goal, to serve the peo­ple. And that is where I am. I stand here to­day against that back­ground.”

Sankar came in­to the spot­light af­ter be­ing the on­ly UNC coun­cil­lor to at­tend a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form sym­po­sium and con­sul­ta­tions host­ed by the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in Au­gust last year af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­esar had called on coun­cil­lors, may­ors, and al­der­men from her par­ty to boy­cott the con­sul­ta­tions.

The Kel­ly Vil­lage coun­cil­lor made it clear that he has no in­ten­tion of cross­ing the floor to an­oth­er par­ty at this time.

“I am here to serve the peo­ple, and you know, if that op­por­tu­ni­ty presents it­self in na­tion-build­ing and serv­ing the coun­try, yes, that is some­thing I would con­sid­er, but as of now, I’m not in ... I’ve not screened for any lo­cal gov­ern­ment po­si­tion,” he said.

Re­count­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had said that one should not fall in love with the of­fice, he added, “I’m here to­day. I’ve giv­en sev­en years of my time and tal­ent to­wards lo­cal gov­ern­ment.”

Sankar said that he hopes to see Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form, “I long for the day when re­form would come and kick in, and peo­ple could ap­pre­ci­ate where the goods and ser­vices could go down to the peo­ple who need it.”

He said talks about re­form have been around since the 1990s. “It’s 23 years, 21 to 23 years now, and fi­nal­ly, we see the light at the end of the tun­nel, and there is so much dra­ma in it. If you call an elec­tion now, what hap­pens? Who is go­ing to ex­e­cute it? And that’s the chal­lenge we have in lo­cal gov­ern­ment and most of the agen­cies, ex­e­cu­tion is a prob­lem. Folks do not even un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics.”