RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A month af­ter promis­ing to oust Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo, Mon De­sir Coun­cil­lor Deryck Bowrin has with­drawn his mo­tion of no con­fi­dence. Bowrin said he de­cid­ed af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with Mayrhoo and oth­ers to re­scind the mo­tion.

In­sist­ing that it was nev­er his in­ten­tion to bring the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion in­to dis­re­pute, he ex­plained, “There were is­sues that need­ed to be ad­dressed, and I at­tempt­ed to ad­dress them. Af­ter dis­cus­sions with the may­or and oth­ers, I de­cid­ed we would move for­ward and work as a team for the bor­ough’s ben­e­fit.”

Bowrin ac­knowl­edged some im­prove­ment in co­op­er­a­tion with­in the coun­cil.

“I have seen progress with the May­or and oth­er mem­bers of the coun­cil. Things are mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion, and I am hope­ful they will con­tin­ue to im­prove,” he said.

Al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts, who had pre­vi­ous­ly clashed with Mayrhoo, con­firmed that dis­cus­sions with Bowrin led to the with­draw­al.

“All is well as far as I am con­cerned. The cor­po­ra­tion was nev­er in dis­re­pute. There were some con­cerns, but most of those have been ad­dressed,” Roberts said.

“There were dif­fer­ences, but those have been ironed out. The work of the cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ues, and I in­tend to work with the may­or. I have al­ways re­spect­ed him.”

May­or Mayrhoo wel­comed the res­o­lu­tion and em­pha­sised the need for team­work.

“I am hap­py we found com­mon ground to work to­geth­er in the in­ter­est of the bor­ough. It is im­por­tant we do noth­ing that brings the cor­po­ra­tion in­to dis­re­pute,” he said.

Mayrhoo said the cor­po­ra­tion owes $7 mil­lion to sup­pli­ers.

“We are se­ri­ous­ly strapped for fund­ing. What we re­ceived so far may not last half the fi­nan­cial year. I hope the mid-year re­view brings some re­lief, as we need to pre­vent sup­pli­ers from black­list­ing us,” he said.

Mayrhoo al­so raised con­cern about the lack of sup­port for street light­ing in Siparia and Fyz­abad Junc­tion.

“We re­quest­ed as­sis­tance from T&TEC, but they said we must in­stall the lights our­selves. We can­not af­ford the $150,000 need­ed for in­stal­la­tion,” he said.

Bowrin first sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to file the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in No­vem­ber, cit­ing pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns and al­le­ga­tions of mis­man­age­ment. A week lat­er he failed to give no­tice but that the mo­tion would come in De­cem­ber. 

A source said Bowrin did not have sup­port from the rest of the Coun­cil, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the PNM, and even if the mo­tion was de­bat­ed there was not enough sup­port to oust Mayrhoo.