City Council owes Kaieteur News $7.1M, yet sues for $6.2M
October 11, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under News, Source
Legal action against Kaieteur News by City Hall has been condemned by Mayor Hamilton Green, who believes this is a malicious act perpetrated by the Town Clerk on behalf of the Government.
Kaieteur News
Publisher, Glenn Lall
Mayor Green was responding to queries about the indebtedness of his organization to Kaieteur News.
Publisher of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall, explained that for the period 2007 to present City Hall owes Kaieteur News $7.1M for advertisements published. By July 2011 Kaieteur News was forced to send a statement of arrears to City Hall as a reminder to honour the debt.
Lall, whose newspaper has been exposing corruption and conflict of interest between Government officials and their friends, finds the legal action surprising since there was an arrangement between City Hall and Kaieteur News to offset payments.
According to City Hall, Kaieteur News owes some $6.2 million for taxes on the building that houses the newspaper at 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown.
Because City Hall was not forthcoming with payments on the outstanding accounts Kaieteur News made the arrangement to offset the payments, an agreement to which City Hall readily agreed.
The Mayor said that he found it surprising that Attorney-at-Law Euclin Gomes, who is not a lawyer assigned by City Hall, issued the legal action for the Council. Gomes operates out of Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s private chambers.
He was a former City Councillor on the GGG ticket.
According to Green, the legal action initiated by Town Clerk Carol Sooba is a reflection of her behaviour at City Hall, which led to Councillors moving two no-confidence motions against her. However, Local Government and Regional Development Minister, Ganga Persaud has refused to move her because of her propensity to be at their “beck and call”.
Town Clerk Carol Sooba
Green acknowledged the payment plan worked out between Kaieteur News and City Hall. He said that similar arrangements have been made with other companies. He said Sooba has refused to do the decent thing of exchanging cheques, a solution which has been proposed for years.
He said this is the latest attempt of Government exploring its options of targeting persons who are critical of their wrongdoings. The vindictiveness of this act is reflective in Sooba singling out those who should be pursued for outstanding payments, he added.
Mayor Hamilton Green
According to Green, several friends of the Government, for instance Anand Persaud, the proprietor of NTN and Reeaz Khan, owe the city millions of dollars. He said this assault ignores that Persaud has two buildings, one on Charlotte Street and the other at Brickdam, both of which rake in heavy sums.
He pointed out that recently his wife, Dr. Basdeo, who had objected to the valuation of her property for years was singled out by City Hall. Green said Dr. Basdeo and himself were unable to have Council act on the objection.
NTN Proprietor, Anand Persaud
City Hall, through the Town Clerk is waging a smear campaign against those critical of the government. The fact that the council resorted to Gomes suggested that the other lawyers did not want to be engaged in a campaign of selective persecution.
Government is using Sooba to execute its dirty work.