Mayor of Rose Hall Town, Vijay Kumar Ramo, is calling on President David Granger to fire Town Clerk Natasha Monroe. The Mayor made the call during the town’s 175th anniversary celebrations, attended by many residents and also by Head of State, President David Granger.
Mayor of Rose Hall, Vijay Kumar Ramo
“I had to call a meeting this morning; having to call a meeting for a grant that you gave to the sports club to develop that ground, Mr President. The contractor submitted his bid and the Town Clerk refused, with the advice of the Minister of Communities, to pay the contractor. This is just one example of the condition and oppression facing the Municipality of Rose Hall. This town should have been moving a far way in 2017; we should not have been at this stage here today.
“The residents are suffering because of administrative deficiencies, Mr President. It the same way that your Government acted in removing the REO [Regional Executive Officer] of Region Six [East Berbice/Corentyne], you must act responsibly and remove the Town Clerk of this town with immediate effect. We cannot continue like this; it has to happen,” the Mayor said in a brief speech on Thursday last at the Area ‘H’ ground, where the anniversary celebrations were held.
“So I am asking the residents to stand firm, and we must have the leadership that we deserve in this town. Mr President, please act responsibly and give Rose Hall the leadership that is needed. We cannot move forward, although we have made tremendous strides in the last few months, things have taken a turn for the worse. I don’t want to make a speech, I just want to deal with the facts that we have here…,” Mayor Ramo said to conclude his address.
Acting Town Clerk, Natasha Monroe
As he made the call, some residents chanted that it was not the appropriate forum for that. However, they sat silent when Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTYSC), Hilbert Foster, said he was going to stop supporting the development of the town because of the way the local administration had treated him.
Speaking with this publication on Thursday, Foster said that when he went to the office, the Town Clerk had shouted at him as in he were a child.
President Granger addressed the issue when he spoke. He said the Town Clerk will have to be “given her medicine”.
Back in September 2016, the Town Clerk had slammed the door of her office in the faces of media operatives who had gone to the Municipality under the instruction of the Mayor to uplift information on the town. Moments before that incident, the Mayor had told reporters that he had stopped going to his office because of abuse being meted out to him by the Town Clerk.
According to Ramo, acting Town Clerk Natasha Monroe started her abuse at the very first statutory meeting of the council she had attended. At that meeting, in her capacity as Clerk of the Council, she began pointing her fingers in the Mayor’s face and had used language unbecoming of an officer of the council.
After analyzing her actions, Ramo said, he has come to the conclusion that Monroe is undermining the development of the council.
“At that first meeting, she stood up and said, ‘You know who am I? I am a mother of three, and I have a husband who is a big strong blackman.’ And that has been her pattern at several meetings. Then a few meetings she did it to the deputy, then she did it to the deputy a couple days after again, then she did it to me at the last meeting, and said that I hijacked the Town Day activity and give it to Foster, and she went on, with a busing, that she is the person with the authority and is in charge. And (she) told me that I have no authority, and then (she) walked out of the meeting and never returned,” the frustrated Mayor related.
He continued saying, “She went on to make statements about the Minister: ‘Who the hell is Bulkan?’ The next day I went back there, and was in the treasurer department and she came to me and said, ‘Let me tell you something: I am in charge here, you have no authority here and you cannot write me no letter. If you want to write me, you have to write the Minister and let the Minister send it to me’.”
Ramo says he is afraid of the Town Clerk, and goes to the office at about 6:30h each day to meet with staff, and leaves at about 8:30, when the Town Clerk arrives.
The Mayor’s outburst on Thursday came days after Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communities, Jaisingh Jaigobin, met with the Town Clerk and Councillors to give the Town Clerk a hearing. Following the meeting, he expressed the view that the allegations against the Town Clerk were personal.
Meanwhile, in December 2015, six months after the new Administration took office, the then Town Clerk, Jenny Allicock, was given a one-month notice of her dismissal by the Minister, despite no allegation coming from the council.
The Minister’s actions were criticised by the council and the regional administration.
When this publication went to the Town Clerk’s office to get a comment from her on the allegations, she slammed the door without admitting or denying the allegations.
