Gail Alexan­der

Re­sign­ing is the prop­er thing to do.

That was Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion re­gard­ing Port-of-Spain May­or Ray­mond Tim Kee last night as an ex­pect­ed res­ig­na­tion from him failed to ma­te­ri­alise yes­ter­day.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Franklin Khan who is the cor­po­ra­tion's line min­is­ter and who's al­so chair­man of the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) made the point when Tim Kee's res­ig­na­tion failed to ma­te­ri­alise up to late yes­ter­day.

Up to 5 pm, Port-of-Spain city coun­cil­lors were still said to be in a emer­gency meet­ing de­lib­er­at­ing on Tim Kee's ex­pect­ed res­ig­na­tion and whether to ac­cept it.

But sources said the coun­cil was not ac­cept­ing his res­ig­na­tion.

Coun­cil­lors of the PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion met on the is­sue yes­ter­day at the same time a group of peo­ple was stag­ing a demon­stra­tion in sup­port of Tim Kee in Wood­ford Square, Port of Spain, op­po­site City Hall.

Mind Chang­ers of T&T group, head­ed by for­mer coun­cil­lor Rudy Williams, al­so de­liv­ered a let­ter to City Hall pe­ti­tion­ing the coun­cil to re­ject Tim Kee's res­ig­na­tion.

Coun­cil­lor Farai Ma­sai­sai, who emerged to thank sup­port­ers, said around noon: "The po­si­tion of the coun­cil is we sup­port our may­or and we hope he con­tin­ues as may­or of Port-of-Spain. He hasn't re­signed, the meet­ing is still go­ing on.

"I don't think we would make a fi­nal de­ci­sion to­day but at the end of the day half of it is up to the may­or and half of it is up to the coun­cil as a whole," Ma­sai­sai added.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act doesn't al­low for Gov­ern­ment to re­move Tim Kee.

The Coun­cil, or at least three fourths of its mem­bers, has to pass a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in the may­or for him to re­sign.

Tim Kee has been un­der the gun since last week fol­low­ing com­ments he made when asked about the death of Japan­ese mas­quer­ad­er Asa­mi Na­gakiya. Her body was found in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Car­ni­val cos­tume on Ash Wednes­day. She was stran­gled.

Tim Kee's re­port­ed com­ments ap­peared to link the sit­u­a­tion with per­ceived lewd­ness in T&T Car­ni­val. He lat­er claimed his com­ments were tak­en out of con­text.

Groups protest­ed out­side his of­fice last Fri­day seek­ing his re­moval. Tim Kee sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cat­ed in­ten­tion to re­sign. On Sat­ur­day, he said he would call an emer­gency meet­ing of coun­cil on that. Via a sep­a­rate state­ment, how­ev­er, he said he still had work to do.

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley ini­tial­ly said there was no need to dis­miss Tim Kee but he dis­tanced his Gov­ern­ment from "vic­tim blam­ing" which Tim Kee was per­ceived to have done.

On Sun­day, how­ev­er, Row­ley said af­ter re­view­ing the full state­ment on tele­vi­sion he re­alised Tim Kee's state­ments were un­ac­cept­able and that Tim Kee did the cor­rect thing in re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism from the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and of­fer­ing to re­sign­ing.

Speak­ing on the eve of his de­par­ture to Be­lize to at­tend Cari­com meet­ings, Row­ley said cer­tain con­cerns were "con­veyed to Tim Kee in a text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tion ear­ly Thurs­day." Row­ley said as far as he was con­cerned the mat­ter had been ad­dressed.

Coun­cil­lor Farai Ma­sai­sai said there had been a lot of sup­port for him not to demit of­fice.

Ma­sai­sai said coun­cil mem­bers were de­lib­er­at­ing on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act as there were pro­ce­dures to fol­low and was de­lib­er­at­ing on whether to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion or not.

"It's not a pro­ce­dure that will hap­pen overnight," he added.

He said Tim Kee would make a de­ci­sion ei­ther "to­day (Mon­day) or in ac­cor­dance with what­ev­er pro­ce­dure there is to fol­low." Ma­sai­sai, an at­tor­ney, added Tim Kee was be­ing ad­vised by coun­sel in his of­fice.

How­ev­er, Khan told the T&T Guardian last night: "As line min­is­ter, I think Mr Tim Kee did the right think in of­fer­ing his res­ig­na­tion and I sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter's view that was the way to go.

"He had said that re­sign­ing was the way to go and I sup­port­ed that move and the PM sup­port­ed that al­so and we still stand by that, that he felt the res­ig­na­tion of­fered by him was the prop­er thing to do. We con­tin­ue to stand by that, that it's (re­sign­ing) the prop­er thing to do."

Up to 5.30 pm, a City Hall spokesman said the meet­ing was "still go­ing on." There was no word on a res­ig­na­tion from Tim Kee. Calls to his phones went to voice mail.

At 6.30 pm, Ma­sai­sai said via an­oth­er par­ty that he was "un­able to speak."

Coun­cil sources said it com­pris­es 16 mem­bers and about six coun­cil­lors were ab­sent from yes­ter­day's meet­ing in­clud­ing one who is over­seas.