Two PNM coun­cil­lors—Si­mone Gill and Paul Mon­glas—of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, have called on UNC coun­cil­lor for Cu­mu­to/Tamana Anil Ma­haraj to step down.

They did so at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

Ma­haraj, the UNC coun­cil­lor for Cu­mu­to/Tamana, was ar­rest­ed last week by a team of of­fi­cers from the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB).

He faces charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. He is al­leged to have de­mand­ed $15,000 from a con­trac­tor of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Ma­haraj is the chair­man of the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Gill said at the news brief­ing, “We’ve gath­ered here to ex­claim the need for the res­ig­na­tion of the coun­cil­lor for Cu­mu­to Tamana, coun­cil­lor Anil Ma­haraj, and we call on coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj to do so with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. We al­so call on the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take what­ev­er ac­tion nec­es­sary to as­sist in pre­serv­ing the in­tegri­ty and de­cen­cy of the dis­tin­guished San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.”

Anil Maharaj

She added: “we un­der­stand clear­ly that coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj is in­no­cent un­til proven guilty but these al­le­ga­tions have re­sult­ed in in­fer­ences that sig­nif­i­cant­ly tar­nished our Au­gust body and there­fore this shad­ow of a doubt that has en­gulfed the cor­po­ra­tion must be de­mol­ished.

She al­so said: “It is our view that these al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct are di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to the job of coun­cil­lor and as such, it is in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Cu­mu­to/Tamana and by ex­ten­sion the re­gion of San­gre Grande that coun­cil­lor Ma­haraj re­signs with im­me­di­ate ef­fect pend­ing the out­come of his case.” —with re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton