WESTERN BUREAU – The tension between Montego Bay Mayor Noel Donaldson and the St James Parish Council’s secretary/manager, Christopher Powell, has intensified with the mayor calling for Powell to be sacked.

“I have asked the Services Commission for his removal from the St James Parish Council as secretary/manager because I have lost all confidence in him,” Donaldson told the Observer this week.

The mayor, who is also the Jamaica Labour Party councillor for the Montego Bay North East Division, said he wrote to the commission last Friday, pointing out a number of reasons he wanted Powell removed from the post.

“There are questionable expenditures of tax payers’ money, there is also the issue of him (Powell) misleading the council by being very sparing with the truth, and other issues that I don’t want to go into at this time,” Donaldson said.

He added that his letter to the commission was accompanied by documentation which, he said, contained issues raised in relation to his concerns about the secretary/manager.

The relationship between the two men has steadily worsened over the last couple of months, with Powell only last month threatening to sue Donaldson who had accused members of the council’s administrative staff of being involved in questionable activities.

Now Powell appears confused by the mayor’s latest salvo.

“I don’t know what the mayor is talking about… because no one can question my performance as secretary/manager,” said the civil servant, who has been at the St James Parish Council for almost two years.

“If you are going to remove me, you will have to remove me based on my performance and nobody can question that,” he added.