The Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the operations of City Hall has recommended that former Town Clerk Carol Sooba be compensated for “wrongful removal from office.”
According to the report submitted by retired Justice Cecil Kennard, the lone commissioner, Sooba submitted a written statement in which she claimed that her employment was wrongfully terminated and that she should be paid her full benefits until she attains the age of 55.
Her contention is that Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan made a grievous mistake when he revoked her appointment as Town Clerk without stating reasons for the revocation.
Kennard concluded based on Sooba’s submission that she should have resumed duties as the Legal Officer of the Council. However, since she has been off the job for more than one year, he noted that reinstatement would be difficult to recommend and, therefore, called instead for Sooba to be compensated for her wrongful removal from office.
Stabroek News, however, previously reported that Sooba was dismissed from her substantive post for failing to resume her duties as Legal Officer after her appointment as Town Clerk was revoked.
On July 27th, 2015, the full council decided to recommend that Sooba be dismissed from her substantive post as Legal Officer after she failed to resume her duties on July 6th, 2015. As a result of this failure, Sooba, according to a letter sent to Bulkan, “forfeited her employment with the council.”
She had been Legal Officer before being controversially appointed Town Clerk in 2012 by the then Minister of Local Government Ganga Persaud.
On May 25th, 2015, the council, at a statutory meeting, voted to send Sooba on leave following the passage of a no-confidence motion, which was forwarded to Bulkan. Following receipt of the approved motion, Bulkan revoked her appointment as acting Town Clerk in July.
Speaking with Stabroek News at the time of Sooba’s removal as Town Clerk, then 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 had 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 degree programme.
“I am a marketable person,” Sooba had stated then, before adding that she was also a Justice of the Peace and a Commissioner to Oaths and Affidavits. “I have a wealth of experience… I have an unblemished record…,” she added.
