“Judiciary seems to be in bed with Government” – Mayor Green

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Several Councilors of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council this morning (September, 05), protested outside the office of the Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang; expressing their disgust at the “slow and frustrating” pace at which the judiciary handles some cases.

The Councilors were led by City Mayor Hamilton Green, who expressed much frustration at the judiciary even as he questioned the judiciary’s independence.

“The impression that we get is that some aspects of the judiciary seem to be in bed with the Government in their effort to punish a city that only gave them 27 percent of the votes,” Green told reporters; adding that “it is unbelievable, undemocratic and unacceptable.”

Green said the government is also punishing city residents with the imposition of Town Clerk (ag) Carol Sooba.

He recalled that “we took a decision at the last meeting to send the lady [Sooba] on administrative leave; nothing has happened since, the Minister has not intervened as he has done before. We took to the police evidence that she misspent $500,000 nothing has happened, that she has purchased a suite for $407,000 illegally without permission, nothing has happen, that she has given contracts of $30-$40 M to particular contractors without going through the process with the finance committee or a tender process, nothing has happen.”

The Mayor pointed out that the charge that was brought against the Council’s Public Relations Officer, Royston King was trumped up and “So it seems to us like the Police and Judiciary are being used like a total police state and we have to let the public know what’s happening, it’s totally unacceptable.”

He cited this as the reason for the increase in crime. “The Mayor and councilors make a report to the police and they can’t investigate even as a matter of form.”

He said too too that the Town Clerk  has a number of questionable characters as her body guards. “We report all this to the Commissioner of Police and nothing is happening so we are left with a situation where the Police seem to be anchored on an undemocratic state and we seem to be drifting to a Police state, the worse state that a people can reach.”