LGC to deliberate on CoI findings today

After instantaneously postponing meetings on Wednesday in which officers of City Hall were supposed to present their cases to the Local Government Commission (LGC), the committee has agreed to convene talks on the implementation of recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry (CoI).
This was announced by sources, who explained that Commissioners were summoned to the LGC headquarters for talks on the way forward. However, no mention was made about Commissioner Carol Sooba’s removal from hearing these discussions.
“We were told that we have a meeting on Friday. We don’t know if they will cancel it again, but officers from City Hall were supposed to show up on Wednesday. They might be called tomorrow (Friday), but again, we cannot make a pronouncement, because everything has been without approval from all of the Commissioners,” the sources explained on Thursday.
In recent times, the LGC has been in the limelight and media reports for actions taken unilaterally to debar Commissioner Sooba from partaking in the discussions. On Wednesday, some Commissioners, along with Sooba, were planning to raise the matter during the meeting, but it was later learnt that this meeting was postponed. Guyana Times was told that the committee members were unavailable for the meeting.
“They called the meeting off and rescheduled it for Friday and it was said that the Commissioners would not be available, because of the issue that they had during the last meeting,” a source explained.
It was mentioned in previous reports that LGC Vic -President Andrew Garnett was once President of the Guyana Local Government Officers Union which led to speculation as to whether these officers would be assessed and penalised for their offences.
Sooba was reportedly asked to recuse herself from attending meetings where her benefits would be discussed, but was told afterwards that she could not sit on the meeting to discuss other matters. This was decided by the Chairman, Mortimer Mingo and the Vice Chairman.
Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall gave some legal insight into the matter, by saying that the Commission could not prevent a constitutionally-elected commissioner from performing their respective duties.
Some of the officers who were requested by the LGC to present their argument to the Commission are Town Clerk Royston King, acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry Munroe, Internal Auditor Omadeily Newton; City Constable Andrew Foo, Human Resources Manager Paula Braithwaite and City Engineer Colvern Venture.