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Taxpayer assaults M&CC legal officer
Mayor & City Council Legal Officer, Carol Sooba
Around 15:50 hours on Wednesday, last, a terribly upset gentleman upon hearing that he had a large arrears in taxes at the office of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) began behaving disorderly. He also assaulted the municipal legal officer.
When Kaieteur News arrived at the M&CC, the legal officer, Carol Sooba, was in her office, trying to regain her composure after the ordeal.
She told Kaieteur News that her assailant, identified as Ishwar Chand, of 36 Robb Street, Bourda, was referred to her by Attorney-at-law Fitz Peters, a while ago, for her assistance with his outstanding tax payments.
Ms Sooba explained that upon his first visit to her office, she tried to deal with his matter, but she required a little time to conduct an investigation to evaluate the situation properly. When he visited her the second time at her office, she said that she was already engaged with another client.
She said that Chand ‘barged in the room’ as if he expected her to ‘neglect’ her other client and take care of his issue.
According to sources inside of the M&CC, it was during his second visit that Chand began behaving disorderly and left Carol Sooba’s office.
“Apparently, he went to Peters to explain to him that he wasn’t getting any assistance and the lawyer told him that if nobody could help him, definitely Carol could.”
This resulted in Chand returning to Carol Sooba once more, this time, in a humble and calm manner.
Sooba stated that on the third visit, she dealt with him outside of her office (where other workers had him in plain view), since she didn’t know what to expect from him.
She continued to work on his case and after investigations, it was found that the property was registered under the name “Mastian Chand” and was being rented to a church.
Another source told this newspaper that Chand is “always in arrears” and that he claimed to be making payments at City Hall with a payment plan. When this was queried, it was found that the registration number that the M&CC had for Chand’s property was 008000077, while he was paying City Hall for an account numbered 008000076(a) which meant that he was “underpaying” his tax-rates.
The source told the Kaieteur News reporter that Chand owed in excess of $4M to the M&CC and the amount in the account that he was paying at City Hall was “very, very small”.
When Carol Sooba told Chand of her evaluation and explained that he needed to go over to the other building to have them deduct the payments that he had made in the “wrong” account from the “correct” total ( over $4M ), he bluntly refused to do so.
Sooba said that she explained to Chand that the M&CC has an “amnesty” arrangement for taxpayers and that it would end at the end of this month and that he could benefit from.
She told him that if he paid this month, with the amnesty in place, all of the interest that was accumulated would be erased.
Chand still refused to do so, and as such, began raising his voice in the M&CC office and hurled insults at Carol.
Some sources stated that Chand ‘snatched’ his transport out of Carol’s hands (the transport was lodged at the M&CC) and shouted that she was “distorting money” from him.
One person told Kaieteur News that Chand “chucked” Carol and began hitting her. He was eventually stopped by a male employee of the M&CC, who stood between Chand and Carol, to prevent Carol from being further assaulted.
Chand then left the compound in haste.
Kaieteur News understands that there were two constables at the gate who witnessed the ordeal and shouted at both Chand and Carol that they would “lock” them up etc.
It wasn’t until after the ordeal that the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Gittens, who was located at the M&CC, brought the two constables to Carol to apologize, since they claimed they were not aware that she was a staff there.
However, some other staff members, who were visibly upset about the ordeal, stated that whether or not, Carol was a staff, the constables should not have just “sat back and watched” a man “beating up a woman”.
One staff member said, “They talking about violence in homes and schools…What about workplaces?”
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