Navas to probe Rambachan
New Chaguanas Mayor wants to know how former Mayor Rambachan handled finances between 2003- 2009.The UNC power struggle gets nasty.
The power struggle in the United National Congress (UNC) escalated yesterday with renegade Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner threatening court action and new Chaguanas Mayor Natasha Navas seeking an audit of spending in the borough during former Mayor Suruj Rambachan’s six-year stewardship.
Rambachan himself had earlier delivered a letter from the party regarding charges against Warner of bringing the party into dispute, partly by voting for Government bills.
Warner, who together with Mayaro MP Winston “Gypsy” Peters had briefly attended what was supposed to be a disciplinary committee meeting, at the Rienzi Complex, which he said was aborted because it failed to muster a quorum accused the UNC political leader Basdeo Panday of desperately trying to hold on to power so that he would not be challenged in internal party elections.
He said: “The decision to initiate disciplinary action against me is in bad faith and it is malicious. There is no basis for such a process to be commenced against me.”
He threatened legal action revealing that he had already retained the services of a British lawyer.
Warner, who only on Monday, met US President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss football was back home and brought down to earth by the row between himself, fellow rebels Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Peters and Panday and the UNC hierarchy.
Last night, he attended his “Movement For Change” meeting at the El Dorado Community Centre where young female Mayor Navas talked tough about the finances in the Chaguanas Borough Council.
She said there was going to be an audit of spending by former Mayor Rambachan between July 2003 and July 2009. The CEO was going to be asked to initiate the audit into the finances, assets, liabilities as well as contracts that were awarded.
Such intended action and attendance at the meeting clearly showed that she had aligned herself with the rebels and not with the leadership.