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You cannot bail out a sinking ship
Sep 16, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
You do not bail out a sinking ship. No amount of bailing is going to float a ship that is beyond rescue.
The Mayor and City Council, commonly referred to as the Georgetown municipality has reached the point where it makes no sense trying to bail that body out. No amount of money poured into that body will prevent it from going down.
The government should not come to the rescue of the City Council. It makes no sense. Four months down the line, the same situation will present itself: the Council will again find it difficult to pay its garbage collectors and will need another injection of funds. By that time, who knows, there may also be problems, as there has been in the past, in meeting payments to its staff.
The only solution to the present woes is for a new council to be put in place. Why anyone will object to this is beyond comprehension, but in this political struggle we have in Guyana, control of the city is seen as too critical a prize to be let go and thus there is going to be a serious revolt if the government attempts to go this route.
Unfortunately, the government will have to bite that bullet unless it wishes to see the city reach a stage where its decline becomes totally irreversible and perhaps reaches that point where a new capital city will have to be created. The government has had many opportunities to act decisively and to install a new council. It has been presented on more than one occasion with openings to launch commissions of inquiry into the management of the city council, the recommendations of which could have formed the basis for the dissolution of a council elected since 1994, but which has become depleted in numbers and still divided along political lines.
The administrative costs of the Council are way too excessive in relation to its revenue base and thus is definitely unsustainable unless this base is increased. The Council itself had been making the same old excuse about not being allowed to raise it own finances. The proposals from the Council date back to 1994 and relate to the establishment of a municipal lottery and a container tax.
The Council has however failed to move beyond these suggestions and to tap into existing areas of revenue earning such as corporatizing its markets and commercializing some of the other services it provides, so that these can bring in substantial income. All we have had from the Council over the years is the usual excuse about being stymied in raising revenues.
The Council does, however, have a point in respect to the revaluation of properties. This has moved at a snail’s pace and the government must take some responsibility for this. However it is doubtful whether this would seriously remove the financial woes of the Council since any revaluation of properties is bound to be accompanied by greater demands for equity in terms of how rates and taxes are levied. Right now, a disproportionate share of the revenues of the Council is borne by the business community and this needs to be revised along with greater efforts to improving collections.
The government had earlier this year inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the Council whereby some ten million dollars would be provided each month for select works within the city. Even if this were now to be transferred to the Council’s coffers, it would not last very long.
The only solution to the present impasse is for a new Council to be established, but the government does not have the political courage to do this because it is afraid of the PNCR and once it is afraid of the PNCR, then it will fail to act as it ought to act.
A possible compromise is needed and was offered some time ago in this column. The present council should be dissolved and a non-political Interim Management Committee established. There are two possible models which can be looked at.
The first is to have an Interim Management Committee comprising members drawn exclusively from the private sector. The second is the installation of an Interim Management Committee comprised of persons without any political affiliation who would be allowed to run the Council without interference or humbug from Central Government.
Will it happen? Not likely.
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