Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s (NTA) on­ly al­der­man is now with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and NTA po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith is call­ing on Paul-Daniel Na­hous to do the “eth­i­cal” thing and re­sign from his po­si­tion in the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Na­hous was spot­ted at the UNC’s po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the La Joya Com­plex Tues­day evening in the Aranguez/St Joseph con­stituen­cy. A pic­ture of Na­hous wear­ing a yel­low UNC t-shirt and stand­ing be­side Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der was post­ed on so­cial me­dia. Alexan­der is a well-known po­lit­i­cal foe of Grif­fith.

Ex­plain­ing his de­ci­sion to Guardian Me­dia, Na­hous said, “Some weeks ago I pulled out of the NTA cam­paign be­cause I am do­ing what I think is in the best in­ter­est of my coun­try and giv­en what the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion has done and how the UNC has re­formed it­self for this elec­tion, I do be­lieve it is the best op­tion for the coun­try.”

The se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert al­so be­lieves the NTA can split the vote which will fa­cil­i­tate the PNM’s suc­cess on April 28.

“I do think in this elec­tion that any votes go­ing against the UNC right now is favour­ing the in­cum­bent and af­ter what the PNM did for the last ten years to the coun­try it is very hard to see how any­thing can sup­port hav­ing them come back in for an­oth­er five years. The coun­try can­not keep on go­ing down this road,” he said.

While he as­sured that there is no ill will be­tween him and the NTA lead­er­ship, Na­hous said they did not ap­pre­ci­ate him go­ing pub­lic wear­ing a UNC t-shirt.

“Gary (Grif­fith) did mes­sage me, Nicole (Dy­er-Grif­fith) as well. They were not hap­py about it, to say the least. While they said they un­der­stood my stance, the up­set came from me be­ing pub­lic about it be­cause Gary did know I was go­ing over to the UNC.

“I had con­ver­sa­tions with him, I spoke to him re­spect­ful­ly about a shift. The wear­ing of the yel­low jer­sey just tripped them off ba­si­cal­ly,” he ex­plained.

Na­hous said his of­fi­cial let­ter of res­ig­na­tion from the NTA was sent to Grif­fith yes­ter­day.

Asked if he would re­lin­quish his po­si­tion as al­der­man, Na­hous said there is no le­gal re­quire­ment to do so.

“I don’t know if the par­ty knows this be­cause I have been asked by both Gary and Nicole to re­sign. I don’t know if they will at­tempt to re­move me but what the law states is that if you’re a coun­cil­lor or al­der­man that is your seat for your time in of­fice.

“It is not the par­ty’s seat, as op­posed to an MP seat where if you leave the par­ty, it can trig­ger a by-elec­tion,” he said.

Sec­tion 12 (5) of the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act and sec­tion 12 (5) states, “The term of of­fice of Al­der­men shall be three years and they shall re­tire to­geth­er on the last day of every tri­en­ni­al pe­ri­od, the first of which shall be deemed to have be­gun on the day on which the Coun­cil­lors were elect­ed to of­fice.”

The law does not ad­dress sit­u­a­tions where an in­di­vid­ual cross­es the floor or joins an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith is call­ing on Na­hous to do what he says is the moral­ly cor­rect thing.

“Out of ba­sic ethics, what is ex­pect­ed is that if the NTA ap­point­ed you as an al­der­man then what you’ll do is re­sign as an al­der­man and re­sign from the NTA, that is what would be ex­pect­ed of him.”

In the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, the NTA part­nered with the UNC and se­cured enough votes in the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion to get an al­der­man seat.

Grif­fith said, “He be­came an al­der­man based on the NTA rec­om­mend­ing him, so we will ex­pect that he will re­sign as an al­der­man and from the NTA.”

The NTA leader said he and Na­hous had an am­i­ca­ble con­ver­sa­tion. How­ev­er, Na­hous felt the NTA should have joined with the UNC.