KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Siparia al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts has launched a blis­ter­ing cri­tique of May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo, ac­cus­ing him of ar­ro­gance, poor lead­er­ship and an in­abil­i­ty to man­age the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, as he broke his si­lence on the con­tro­ver­sial Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al coun­cil and leg­isla­tive group meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day, Roberts dis­missed sug­ges­tions his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture was un­der threat be­cause of the pro­posed floor-cross­ing leg­is­la­tion, say­ing his loy­al­ty was now firm­ly with the PNM.

He al­so blamed Mayrhoo for the po­lit­i­cal tur­moil with­in the cor­po­ra­tion, where de­fec­tions from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) have shift­ed the bal­ance of pow­er.

Roberts said, “The may­or of the bor­ough of Siparia is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for all that hap­pened with­in the bor­ough over the last three years. Sec­ond­ly, the may­or does not have what it takes to run a cor­po­ra­tion.”

Roberts said Mayrhoo’s in­abil­i­ty to man­age po­lit­i­cal re­la­tion­ships, cou­pled with the may­or’s con­tin­ued ar­ro­gance, had con­tributed to the UNC los­ing its ma­jor­i­ty on the cor­po­ra­tion.

He added, “You can­not tell me that a cor­po­ra­tion start­ed off with eight-five un­der your watch, and be­cause of your lack of skills in man­ag­ing the cor­po­ra­tion, to­geth­er with the ar­ro­gance that he con­tin­ued to dis­play, and you all would have seen it over the weeks and months, is what re­sult­ed as to what is tak­ing place now in the bor­ough.”

His com­ments came af­ter Mayrhoo pub­licly de­scribed Roberts and Siparia West/Fyz­abad coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali as “two trai­tors” whose de­fec­tions had prompt­ed Gov­ern­ment to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion aimed at pre­vent­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from switch­ing po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance while re­tain­ing their seats.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment ahead of de­bate on the leg­is­la­tion on Wednes­day, Mayrhoo said he had per­son­al­ly lob­bied UNC leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­tro­duce the mea­sure fol­low­ing the de­fec­tions.

He ex­plained that the de­fec­tions had changed the po­lit­i­cal con­fig­u­ra­tion of the cor­po­ra­tion, with the UNC los­ing its ma­jor­i­ty and the PNM gain­ing con­trol of sev­en seats to the UNC’s five.

The floor-cross­ing pro­vi­sion in the bill would re­quire lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives to va­cate their seats if they ceased to be­long to the po­lit­i­cal par­ty un­der whose ban­ner they were elect­ed.

Al­though ap­point­ed an al­der­man at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion un­der the UNC, Roberts re­vealed to Guardian Me­dia that his po­lit­i­cal roots were firm­ly plant­ed in the PNM long be­fore he be­came an al­der­man un­der the UNC ban­ner.

He said, “I am now a full-fledged mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, and mind you, I will just say this for the May­or to hear, I was a PNM mem­ber from since the age of 18 years. I left the PNM in 2020, and I now re­turn to the PNM, so the may­or could do the maths.”

Roberts said his de­ci­sion to re­turn to the PNM was based on his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the UNC and its ap­proach to gov­ern­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.
He ac­cused the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion of pur­su­ing poli­cies that he be­lieved were dam­ag­ing to the coun­try.

Asked about his con­cerns for his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, he replied, “I re­al­ly don’t care about Vic­tor Roberts’ fu­ture. I care about the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go. And if one cares about the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go, they will se­ri­ous­ly recog­nise that UNC-Gov­ern­ment led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a de­struc­tive force… I am a po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist who stands in de­fence of the poor, the op­pressed and the down­trod­den. I will con­tin­ue to do so.”

Roberts al­so in­sist­ed that he had no in­ten­tion of aban­don­ing his po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism, re­gard­less of what the new leg­is­la­tion could mean for his po­si­tion.

Ear­li­er this year, Roberts sev­ered ties with the UNC and aligned him­self with the PNM, cit­ing dis­agree­ments with sev­er­al poli­cies pur­sued by the par­ty af­ter its April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry.

Mayrhoo sub­se­quent­ly called on Roberts to re­sign as an al­der­man, ar­gu­ing he should not re­tain a po­si­tion ob­tained un­der the UNC ban­ner af­ter switch­ing al­le­giance. Roberts re­fused, main­tain­ing that he was en­ti­tled to re­main on the cor­po­ra­tion.

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the tense re­la­tion­ship be­tween him­self and the may­or, Roberts claimed Mayrhoo was strug­gling to ac­cept the UNC no longer con­trolled the cor­po­ra­tion.

He said, “The ten­sion in the cor­po­ra­tion is sim­ply be­cause the may­or re­alised that he lost con­trol. He’s like a tooth­less bull­dog. He’s an­gry, he’s ar­ro­gant… The prob­lem is be­cause we stand for what is right and we will con­tin­ue to for­bid what is wrong.”

He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that the po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences do not stand in the way of him serv­ing the burgess­es.

“We stand for the peo­ple, the burgess­es of the cor­po­ra­tion, and we will con­tin­ue to do the work in the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple as long as I am there.”

Al­so crit­i­cis­ing the may­or was PNM al­der­man Christo­pher Enci­nas.

He said, “Just lis­ten to the may­or’s lan­guage when you’re us­ing words like ‘trai­tor’ and ‘neemakaram.’ These are ug­ly words, and these are not be­com­ing of a per­son hold­ing the ti­tle of may­or of a bor­ough. He’s a very ug­ly per­son. The lan­guage is ter­ri­ble and poor… If there’s any bill that they should have brought to the Par­lia­ment, it’s a bill to re­move the mi­nor­i­ty leader.”