The Mayor and City Council will recommend that Carol Sooba be dismissed from her substantive post as Legal Officer as she has not resumed her duties.
Councillors said at a meeting at City Hall yesterday that a letter to this effect has been written and will be delivered to Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan within 24 hours.
Sooba who served as legal officer of the City Council for more than 15 years will, with this dismissal, lose all her accrued benefits such as pension and gratuity.
Sooba was installed as acting town clerk in 2012 and in 2013 despite not being qualified for the post, she was appointed town clerk by the then minister of local government Ganga Persaud. Her three years in the post had been contentious, with constant conflict between her and the council.
On May 25, the council at a statutory meeting voted to send Sooba on leave.
Her appointment as acting town clerk was officially revoked by the minister earlier this month.
According to the letter written by the council’s personnel officer she should have resumed duties at the council in her substantive legal position of Legal Officer on July 6, but failed to do so.
As a result of this failure Sooba, according to the letter “has forfeited her employment with the council.” Consequently, the minister has been requested to issue her a letter of dismissal.
Speaking with Stabroek News at the time of Sooba’s removal as town clerk, Mayor Hamilton Green had said that the council would’ve been looking into her original appointment as legal officer. “Her whole employment was grounded in deception.
When she claimed she had qualifications for legal officer, she did not have the basic qualifications for that post. Further during her entire time at City Hall Sooba never presented any qualifications even when she applied for the post of Town Clerk,” he told Stabroek News.
In August 2012, Sooba had told this newspaper that she had 22 years of legal experience working at the Deeds Registry and as a Clerk at the Magistrate’s Court. At the time, she said that she was about to complete a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree programme. “I am a marketable person,” Sooba had stated then, adding that she was also a Justice of the Peace (JP) and a Commissioner to Oaths and Affidavits. “I have a wealth of experience… I have an unblemished record…,” she added.
However almost three years later Sooba had not completed the degree programme she reportedly began some eight years ago.
No one has however been able to say how she was appointed without providing proof of qualifications.
