Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion alder­man Vic­tor Roberts says he has no ob­jec­tion to laws be­ing changed to al­low po­lit­i­cal par­ties to re­voke the ap­point­ments of of­fi­cials in po­si­tions like his, but main­tains that un­der the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion he has no in­ten­tion of re­sign­ing.

His com­ments come as mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) con­tin­ue to call on the al­der­man—who re­cent­ly de­fect­ed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)—to step down from his lo­cal gov­ern­ment post on grounds of in­tegri­ty.

Roberts, how­ev­er, coun­tered that UNC mem­bers are the “last peo­ple” who should be lec­tur­ing any­one on in­tegri­ty.

Calls for his res­ig­na­tion in­ten­si­fied af­ter he con­firmed his mem­ber­ship in the PNM at the par­ty’s re­cent sports and fam­i­ly day. Un­der cur­rent lo­cal gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, al­der­men and coun­cil­lors can­not be re­moved by po­lit­i­cal par­ties, even if they cross the floor.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Roberts said, “I have no prob­lem what­so­ev­er that some lev­el of au­thor­i­ty should be giv­en to these in­di­vid­u­als as it re­lates to their choice of an al­der­man, whether they want to keep him or re­move him. I think that’s their pre­rog­a­tive.”

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo has ac­cused Roberts of ob­struct­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ing with­in the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, which was pre­vi­ous­ly con­trolled by the UNC. Roberts’ de­fec­tion, along with a UNC coun­cil­lor cross­ing the floor and the death of an­oth­er coun­cil­lor, has shift­ed the bal­ance of pow­er in favour of the PNM.

On Mon­day, Mayrhoo said Roberts played a role in block­ing a cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za and free en­ter­tain­ment pro­gramme for burgess­es.

Roberts re­ject­ed that char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion, say­ing the de­ci­sion was tak­en in the in­ter­est of redi­rect­ing pub­lic funds.

“The rea­son for that is that ac­tiv­i­ty cost us $120,000 for three hours,” he said. “Coun­cil­lor An­ton George moved a mo­tion that that mon­ey should be utilised for short-term em­ploy­ment and a few ham­pers as part of the bor­ough ac­tiv­i­ty to reach out to the vul­ner­a­ble. See­ing that the may­or was high­light­ed that he most like­ly was get­ting fund­ing from the Min­istry of Cul­ture for some of the events.”

“So when he said that, I de­cid­ed, well, if that is the case, then the bor­ough must not spend that mon­ey for that three hours.”

He added that May­or Mayrhoo should have ex­plained why PNM mem­bers did not sup­port the cul­tur­al show.

Roberts al­so out­lined that his close re­la­tion­ship with the UNC broke down in mid-2024 fol­low­ing a dis­agree­ment with par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He said he had pre­vi­ous­ly warned the then Op­po­si­tion Leader that the par­ty need­ed to be “sani­tised” of in­di­vid­u­als fac­ing al­le­ga­tions and se­ri­ous con­tro­ver­sies.

Ac­cord­ing to Roberts, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse was the fi­nal break, when she al­leged­ly asked whether he want­ed her to re­place such in­di­vid­u­als with “peo­ple like you.”

“So, when she said that, I said, leader, is that a racist state­ment? You said peo­ple like me. So, I want to know what that means. She told me that our con­ver­sa­tion was over. I said, well, since our con­ver­sa­tion is over, I want to in­form you that I and the UNC are over.”

Roberts said he sub­se­quent­ly sided with Rush­ton Paray, who chal­lenged the par­ty’s lead­er­ship for the deputy lead­er­ship post. Af­ter Paray was un­suc­cess­ful, Roberts said he crossed over to the PNM.