Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Na­tion­al Youth Of­fi­cer Dane Wil­son has called on Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj to say why he chose to at­tend a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fundrais­er Christ­mas din­ner in­stead of his Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Christ­mas din­ner, adding that in his view, Ma­haraj’s ac­tions would war­rant re­fer­ral to the par­ty’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­mit­tee on dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters.

Wil­son, who is a for­mer PNM Diego Mar­tin North East con­stituen­cy chair­man, yes­ter­day al­so called on Ma­haraj to say when he would re­sign as may­or.

He post­ed his call and queries to Ma­haraj on Face­book—the lat­est de­vel­op­ment af­ter Ma­haraj at­tend­ed UNC’s fundrais­er two Sat­ur­days ago.

Ma­haraj main­tained last week that he did noth­ing wrong in at­tend­ing the UNC func­tion, where tick­ets cost $750, and he’s said Ari­ma was the “for­got­ten town,” cit­ing things that need­ed to have been done in the area un­der his tenure as PNM May­or.

Ma­haraj, re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia queries on the Christ­mas din­ner held by his Ari­ma cor­po­ra­tion’s events com­mit­tee on the same day as the UNC’s func­tion, had said he had a 3 pm ap­point­ment that day.

He al­so said the Ari­ma func­tion was a “staff par­ty”, and tick­ets cost $200.

But the PNM’s Wil­son yes­ter­day took to Face­book, where he post­ed a let­ter to Ma­haraj, not­ing Ma­haraj had said in an­oth­er news­pa­per that he saw “noth­ing wrong” with his ap­pear­ance at the UNC func­tion.

Wil­son, ques­tion­ing “Par­ty in Pow­er-type pol­i­tics,” said while Ma­haraj may at­tempt to dis­miss crit­i­cism as “hate pol­i­tics,” “there are se­ri­ous ques­tions of loy­al­ty, ethics, and du­ty that de­mand an­swers.”

Wil­son said if he were a cur­rent PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­ber (as he once was), he’d have in­voked Ar­ti­cle 22(5) of the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion. This states that any mem­ber whose con­duct is, in the opin­ion of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, in­im­i­cal to the par­ty’s in­ter­ests shall be li­able to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion as the coun­cil may de­ter­mine.

“In my view, your ac­tions would al­so war­rant re­fer­ral to the In­ves­ti­ga­tion Com­mit­tee on dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters ...,” Wil­son said.

Wil­son called on Ma­haraj to an­swer:

• If he at­tend­ed an Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil meet­ing where Ma­haraj and oth­er coun­cil­lors were of­fi­cial­ly in­formed of, and in­vit­ed to, the Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion Christ­mas Din­ner.

• If he re­ceived a for­mal (soft/hard copy) in­vi­ta­tion to this event

• If on Fri­day, 12th De­cem­ber, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.30 PM, Ma­haraj’s sec­re­tary, Ms Adana Sween, re­mind­ed him of the event?

• Why he chose to at­tend a UNC fundrais­er in­stead of the Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion Christ­mas Din­ner

• Did Ma­haraj see it ap­pro­pri­ate for a PNM May­or to pri­ori­tise a for­mal UNC po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty over an of­fi­cial Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion func­tion

• If Ma­haraj per­son­al­ly pur­chased tick­ets for the cor­po­ra­tion’s din­ner, or in­struct his com­pa­ny to do so

• Whether Ma­haraj be­lieves the PNM is the best po­lit­i­cal par­ty to gov­ern T&T

• Whether he ful­ly sup­ports Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader

• Whether he sup­ports Beck­les be­com­ing the next prime min­is­ter.

• Giv­en his ac­tions and the ques­tions, when would Ma­haraj sub­mit his res­ig­na­tion as Ari­ma May­or for “what ap­pears to be a clear dere­lic­tion of du­ty.”

Yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj didn’t re­spond to Guardian me­dia ques­tions What­sApped to him and calls on Wil­son’s ques­tions.

PNM sources said the is­sue will be dealt with ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ahead.