Mayor Moya still in the hot seat for $90,000

Zenaida Moya won her place back on the U.D.P. ticket as mayoral candidate for the March 2009 elections but that does not mean she is out of the woods. The bitter and personal campaign against her mounted by her own councillors, exposed gross financial mismanagement at City Hall. Auditors were called in and last Thursday, the Council decided that the Mayor must pay back ninety thousand dollars collected since 2006 in additional salary payments. And today Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Local Government, Marian McNab, says the Ministry supports the Council’s position and that Moya has been overpaying herself three thousand dollars per month and that she should repay the money to the Council.

Marian McNab, C.E.O., Ministry of Local Government
“We met with the Council and subsequent to the meeting with the council, the council advised us of their decision and we respected their decision and as far as the ministry is aware, their decision should be carried out.”

Marion Ali
“So it’s not a matter of their word against hers. We all know that almost the entire council is against the mayor.”

Marian McNab
“Right, the Ministry will not take sides. The ministry deals with all the issues with the municipalities in a professional manner. We do not take sides; political, personal or otherwise. Once the council makes a legitimate decision and that decision is recorded in an official minutes of the council, we will respect that and we expect that the council will abide by their decision. That’s where the ministry stands on that.”

Marion Ali
“The mayor’s position is that her salary and stipends/benefits were all agreed to in a resolution; one of the minutes; one of the council meetings and that was one of the resolutions that was passed.”

Marian McNab
“That’s the first minutes of the meeting that I mentioned to you but there is no record in the council or within the ministry showing where a salary of three thousand dollars a month was approved and therein lies the contention. I know that you brought with me earlier, the issue of the mayor obtaining the service of a legal council who had said publicly, via television, that the deputy mayor had signed this pay sheet. But I think that the deputy mayor has addressed that himself in a subsequent interview and I think that what he says should stand. He said that he had to sign the pay sheet because there were the salaries of other employees on that pay sheet and as far as we are aware, he was not aware that the one thousand five hundred dollars on that pay sheet was salary applied from what is approved by the council. That is the Ministry’s understanding of that. Remember it’s only two pay sheets of salary. She is, as far as I call that the deputy mayor signed and like he explained, it had the one thousand five hundred dollars on that. How would he have known that that one thousand five hundred dollars was salary apart from the six thousand dollars that was approved and if you were to look at the payments, they are broken down into different amounts. You will not see a lump sum of six thousand or a lump sum of three thousand. How was he to have been aware that that one thousand five was not a part of the six thousand?”

Marion Ali
“So what happened to the person in charged of finance at the council?”

Marian McNab
“Well, that person’s conduct is also called into question by the Council. The ministry did not go into that because that is a council matter. But that individual who prepared those payments, his conduct is also called into question by the council and by the ministry but that’s a separate issue.”

Moya has said she will not pay back and that her additional salary was authorized.