Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A spe­cial sit­ting of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion came to an abrupt end yes­ter­day af­ter Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers, along with two for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­bers who have since crossed the floor, walked out fol­low­ing heat­ed clash­es.

The dis­pute cen­tred on the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders gov­ern­ing the ap­point­ment of chair­men of var­i­ous “ad hoc” com­mit­tees.

The PNM now holds a ma­jor­i­ty on the coun­cil, with sev­en votes to the UNC’s five, af­ter for­mer UNC mem­bers Vic­tor Roberts and Coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali crossed the floor to sit with the PNM.

An­oth­er UNC coun­cil­lor, Romona Roberts, was mur­dered in No­vem­ber 2025.

The meet­ing be­gan with a heat­ed ex­change be­tween May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo and Al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts af­ter Roberts at­tempt­ed to move a mo­tion to eject ex­ter­nal par­ties—in­clud­ing mem­bers of the me­dia and the Di­rec­tor of Le­gal from the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment—from the meet­ing.

Both had been in­vit­ed by the may­or. How­ev­er, Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary Ami­rah Mo­hammed ex­plained that the may­or had not over­stepped his au­thor­i­ty.

The coun­cil then vot­ed to elect chair­men for four Stand­ing Com­mit­tees—Pub­lic Health; Per­son­nel; Fi­nance, Plan­ning and Al­lo­ca­tion of Re­sources; and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture.

With the PNM hold­ing the ma­jor­i­ty, its nom­i­nees were elect­ed to head those com­mit­tees.

The coun­cil then ap­proved, with­out ob­jec­tion, the for­ma­tion of sev­er­al “ad hoc” com­mit­tees. How­ev­er, ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed when the may­or moved to se­lect the chair­man of each com­mit­tee.

PNM mem­bers ob­ject­ed, cit­ing an­oth­er Stand­ing Or­der and in­sist­ing that the chair­men should be elect­ed through a vote by coun­cil mem­bers.

PNM Coun­cil­lor An­ton George said they be­lieved va­can­cies had arisen be­cause the chair­men were not the same as those ap­point­ed in pre­vi­ous years, mak­ing the vot­ing process ap­plic­a­ble.

How­ev­er, the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary re­viewed the Stand­ing Or­ders and ex­plained that the com­mit­tees were be­ing re­con­sti­tut­ed and no seats had been de­clared va­cant.

“This is not an elec­tion; it is a se­lec­tion process. Va­can­cy does not war­rant to be con­sid­ered at this point in time at the pro­ceed­ings which we are at,” she said.

Dis­agree­ing with her, PNM Al­der­man Christo­pher Enci­nas ar­gued that the coun­cil, and not the may­or, should se­lect the chair­men.

Enci­nas then moved a mo­tion for a 15-minute ad­journ­ment to al­low the mem­bers to de­lib­er­ate and seek fur­ther guid­ance.

There was fur­ther cross-talk be­tween the may­or and PNM mem­bers.

When the meet­ing re­sumed, the Min­istry’s Di­rec­tor of Le­gal, Ron­dell Don­awa, had ar­rived.

The may­or then read a let­ter from Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, who quot­ed ex­ten­sive­ly from the Stand­ing Or­ders and agreed with the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the may­or and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary.

But the PNM mem­bers re­mained op­posed, in­di­cat­ing they would seek their own le­gal ad­vice.

“We have ab­solute­ly no con­fi­dence in the min­is­ter’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Act. The Min­is­ter is not an at­tor­ney-at-law and there­fore we have no con­fi­dence,” said Roberts.

The may­or or­dered him to take his seat, say­ing he would not al­low him to “abuse the min­is­ter.”

As the may­or was about to ask Don­awa to pro­vide ad­vice and guid­ance on the mat­ter, Enci­nas ob­ject­ed.

“We in­vit­ed them to be here to give cer­tain ad­vice in this meet­ing, and I am ask­ing you to take your seat,” the may­or said.

How­ev­er, Enci­nas said the PNM did not recog­nise Don­awa’s au­thor­i­ty to give an opin­ion to the coun­cil at that time.

“We are not go­ing to ac­cept Mr Don­awa’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of what you just said the min­is­ter said,” he added.

The may­or then asked whether the PNM mem­bers want­ed him to ad­journ the meet­ing to al­low them to seek pri­vate le­gal ad­vice.

Enci­nas stood and said: “We are ad­journ­ing this meet­ing for when we con­sid­er ap­pro­pri­ate. Coun­cil­lors, let’s go.”

The PNM mem­bers then walked out.

As they left, the may­or chas­tised them, call­ing them fail­ures and say­ing they would al­so lose the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

The PNM mem­bers lashed back, crit­i­cis­ing the may­or’s be­hav­iour, de­scrib­ing it as hooli­gan­ism and say­ing they would not be bul­lied.

“The may­or is not fit to sit in this cham­ber as the may­or,” charged Roberts.

The may­or did not back down.

“Go from here, you are a PNM. You is a UNC turn PNM and they refuse to give you a com­mit­tee. They us­ing you like a door­mat.”

The cross-talk con­tin­ued for sev­er­al min­utes be­fore the two sides went their sep­a­rate ways.