Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 13, 2014 Editorial
The Georgetown Municipality has what could only be described as a most confusing situation. For starters, there are two Town Clerks in place; the Mayor is little better than useless since he has no authority over much and the political influence is overwhelming.
There is no other country where the Mayor has been so stripped of his powers as to be rendered ineffective. The laws allow him to preside over the affairs of the council and to ensure that decisions of the council are executed. However, the present situation is that a politically appointed Town Clerk has assumed more power than the Mayor, with the support of the government.
Accusations that the government wanted to control the Georgetown Municipality have been around for years. On one occasion, just prior to the last local government elections being held in 1994, the government succeeded in installing an Interim Management Committee. This committee was headed by a known supporter of the ruling party. Most of the members of the Interim Management Committee were closely aligned to the ruling party.
The result was that the government pulled out all the stops to ensure that the city got the kind of money it needed to conduct its business. There was a massive road rehabilitation programme, a major desilting programme, and other business of the municipality. And it was during the tenure of the IMC that the Georgetown Sewerage and Water Commissioners, now Guyana Water Inc., was taken from under the umbrella of the City Council and made an independent entity.
When the garbage piles began to mount, everyone blamed the council. It was not the wisest thing to do but it enabled the government to promote itself as perhaps the most efficient entity to exist in Guyana. The local government elections of 1994 saw the replacement of the IMC with a duly elected council. The government got the third largest number of seats and so failed to control a majority. In the eyes of the government the situation had reverted to what it was prior to the IMC.
The garbage piles were seen as a measure of the failure of the council. It was not a good thing to acknowledge that a greater number of people were coming into the city and leaving behind the garbage piles.
The government then moved to prevent the council from expanding its revenue base—it denied the council from holding a lottery; it prevented the council from imposing a tax on certain commodities that went into the garbage piles, things like Styrofoam and disposable bottles; and monies it collected that should have gone to the council simply went into the government coffers.
The council, on the other hand, did not apply maximum effort to collect outstanding rates. Less than sixty per cent of the people who live in the city pay their rates. Many of the buildings are under-assessed and the council has been denied the right to hike its rates. In one case the business community moved to the courts and challenged the hike in rates, using the very garbage piles as an excuse.
But the government, quite rightly, says that City Hall must collect all monies owed to it. Unfortunately, the very government does not heed its own advice. It is owed billions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars by contractors who failed to properly execute projects, and even more millions of dollars by people who occupy or control government assets but refuse to honour their obligations.
The council has brought about its own downfall; the councilors have attracted the disrespect that they now face. So we have a Town Clerk openly disrespecting and disobeying the Mayor’s orders; we have a Town Clerk who disrespects the Christian community in Guyana but insists that she should lead the council in prayer. When this is not agreed to, she forces the cancellation of the statutory meeting because she is the chief recorder.
She locks the Mayor out of his office, forces meetings to be held in the yard and makes rules for the council. And the government supports this. Small wonder that disrespect is the order of the day in just about every sphere of authority.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
Mar 29, 2024
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