Sascha Wil­son

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), still reel­ing from the de­par­ture of San Fer­nan­do May­or Mar­lene Coudray who has joined the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), is fac­ing the loss of an­oth­er of its mem­bers in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion. Glo­ria Cal­liste, the coun­cil­lor for Mara­bel­la West, is threat­en­ing to fol­low­ing in Coudray's foot­steps be­cause she claims she has been dis­re­spect­ed by se­nior mem­bers of the par­ty.

Cal­liste, one of three COP coun­cil­lors in the cor­po­ra­tion, ad­mit­ted yes­ter­day that she was not get­ting along with San Fer­nan­do West MP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan. She claims the COP MP, in whose con­stituen­cy she is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, re­fus­es to com­mu­ni­cate with her and even told her she did not sup­port her as a can­di­date in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

"If she could make a state­ment like that to me it means she can­not work with me," Cal­liste said. "I love my par­ty but I will have to make a de­ci­sion. I can­not go through this all the time. If they don't re­solve this prob­lem I will have to make a de­ci­sion." Cal­liste al­so com­plained that Seep­er­sad-Bachan opened a sub-of­fice a short dis­tance away from her and nev­er in­formed her.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said that the coun­cil­lor was up­set be­cause she ob­ject­ed to the award of a CEPEP con­tract to Cal­liste's son. Seep­er­sad-Bachan, the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, ex­plained that dur­ing her 2010 elec­tion cam­paign she took a prin­ci­pled po­si­tion that no CEPEP con­tract should go to coun­cil­lors or their rel­a­tives.

"I see it as a bla­tant con­flict of in­ter­est. One of the is­sues we had with her is that a CEPEP con­tract went to her son. I was of the view she had no right and that was a con­flict of in­ter­est." She said the oth­er is­sue she has with Cal­liste is her per­for­mance. "The peo­ple are al­ways com­plain­ing," she said, adding that Coudray and Cal­liste are free to sup­port what­ev­er par­ty they wish.

"Make your de­ci­sion and move on," Seep­er­sad-Bachan said. Cal­liste said she sent e-mails to COP po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har and chair­man Joseph Toney about her con­cerns and a meet­ing was arranged for last Sun­day. How­ev­er, she could not at­tend be­cause of car prob­lems.