Shal­iza Has­sanali

A bit­ter feud be­tween San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion May­or Mar­lene Coudray and deputy may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali is tak­ing place over a $54,000 Mas­ters of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tive (MBA) pro­gramme, which the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment fund­ed for Coudray.Coudray is be­ing ac­cused by Mu­radali, COP coun­cil­lor for Les Ef­forts East/Cipero of us­ing mon­ey from the cor­po­ra­tion's cof­fers to fund the MBA. The is­sue came up in a May 19, 2011 statu­to­ry meet­ing and was list­ed in the cor­po­ra­tion's ac­counts of 325/10/11.The fees, which fell un­der the ac­count code "net rev­enue," was list­ed as a re­quest for tele­graph­ic trans­fer from Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd (High Street) branch to RDI (USA) Ltd re: "Pay­ment of MBA fees on be­half of HW (Her Wor­ship) the May­or Mar­lene Coudray."

As deputy chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion's fi­nance com­mit­tee, Mu­radali al­so in­sist­ed that con­tracts are al­so award­ed with­out ten­der­ing and to most­ly PNM hacks.In­sist­ing that im­pro­pri­ety was tak­ing place, Mu­radali called for a foren­sic au­dit:"I did not be­lieve that she (Coudray) was fit when she was giv­en to us as the May­or and I still main­tain that po­si­tion. Very ear­ly I had some run-ins with Ms Coudray on the ba­sis that we start de­vel­op­ing the city."Mu­radali said he was cur­rent­ly de­bat­ing "whether or not I will step down as deputy may­or since she does not call me for any meet­ings in the city."

'She was abu­sive'

Mu­radali said when he raised the is­sue of the MBA fees, in one in­stance, Coudray was "abu­sive to me" but ex­plained that it was ap­proved by the past coun­cil.Mu­radali said no min­utes from these past meet­ings were pro­vid­ed to sub­stan­ti­ate her claims."She should have de­clared all in­ter­ests... ex­plain what was done when you were CEO. But this was not done. Every week we un­rav­el some­thing new in terms of what was done while she was CEO, which by ac­count­ing stan­dards will amount to in­dis­crim­i­na­to­ry spend­ing."

On Fri­day, Coudray backed by the cor­po­ra­tion's CEO De­o­dath Ra­goo­bar, city trea­sur­er ac­coun­tant Ranu Seu­dat and coun­cil­lor Er­rol Sinanan showed min­utes from the May 19 statu­to­ry meet­ing, where the pre­vi­ous PNM-ruled coun­cil had ap­proved pay­ments for the may­or's MBA since Jan­u­ary 2010, while she served as CEO.The MBA is a four-year pro­gramme. So far, Coudray, chair­man of the fi­nance com­mit­tee has com­plet­ed sev­en of nine mod­ules.Coun­cil was told by Seu­dat that the mat­ter had been rec­ti­fied on the sched­ule of vouch­ers.Seu­dat said she was asked to place the men­tioned sched­ule in a sep­a­rate sundry cred­i­tors ac­count.The fees, Coudray said, was ap­proved in 2008 by coun­cil and re-eval­u­at­ed in 2010.

'He has been try­ing to up­stage me'

Coudray, who con­test­ed the San Fer­nan­do West seat on a COP tick­et in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion said Mu­radali had been vy­ing for the post of may­or since Au­gust and had a clique of three coun­cil­lors back­ing him to up­stage her.A vote of con­fi­dence can be filed by nine coun­cil­lors to re­move her."I take strong is­sue with the deputy may­or try­ing to tar­nish my name... my rep­u­ta­tion. You don't be­come may­or by try­ing to kick down some­body. You earn it."

Con­spir­a­cy

Sinanan said he felt there was a con­spir­a­cy to un­der­mine Coudray."I don't know if you are aware Mr Mu­radali thinks he should be the may­or. He is bark­ing up the wrong tree. Some peo­ple prob­a­bly have a prob­lem with woman lead­er­ship. None of them can run this cor­po­ra­tion," Coudray in­ter­ject­ed.Coudray said peo­ple were go­ing all out to bring the cor­po­ra­tion in­to dis­re­pute, but added: "I fought big­ger fish than them. I want them to ac­count for mon­ey giv­en to them. I could ac­count for this."She ex­plained that un­der the lead­er­ship of then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, there was an elec­tion for may­or every three years."For some rea­son peo­ple thought that there was go­ing to be a may­oral elec­tion this Au­gust. But it's every three years."At the end of a statu­to­ry meet­ing in Au­gust, Coudray said she dis­ap­point­ed those who came ex­pect­ing a may­oral elec­tion."I told them that there is go­ing to be none (elec­tion) un­less I die and I don't think the Lord is ready to take me yet."

Be­yond mis­chief

Coudray said when she saw the MBA fees on the cor­po­ra­tion's ac­counts she ques­tioned if some­one was "try­ing to set me up."She added: "I told them al­ready, you know I like court. The three times I went to court I won three times and all for dis­crim­i­na­tion. Is a good thing I am not crooked. This goes be­yond mis­chief."Coudray said she is not like the an­i­mal who af­ter giv­ing milk kicks down the pail.Ra­goo­bar in­sist­ed that all con­tracts are done above board and au­dit­ed."Noth­ing could hide. There is noth­ing sin­is­ter about this."Ra­goo­bar said this pulling and tug­ging could es­ca­late.Coudray said she will ad­dress the mat­ter with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma over the week­end.