Georgetown garbage crisis: PPP’s dirty politics with citizen’s lives

Jul 25, 2010 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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There can be no doubt that the garbage situation in the capital city of Georgetown is of great concern to the citizens of Georgetown as it should be of the Government, particularly, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Tourism.

Regrettably, the actions of the PPP Administration, recent irresponsible statements by the Minister of Local Government and untruthful and unfounded statements by President Jagdeo, confirm that the garbage crisis in the city reflects the spitefulness of the Jagdeo Administration to the extent of creating health hazards for citizens to facilitate the achievement of narrow political objectives.

POLITICAL CONTROL

This garbage situation has not developed overnight. It is the ultimate result of procrastination and unwarranted delays by the PPP Administration over the development of the new dump site at Haags Bosch; their refusal to pay their rates and taxes due to the City promptly; their discriminatory policy with respect to the transfer of funds to which the City is entitled from taxation in the City which the Government has adamantly refused to transfer to the Council; the interference and attempts at PPP control of the Georgetown City Council; and, inefficiencies in the Management of the City by the Georgetown City Council.

Unfortunately the latter reason has been compounded by the continued misuse of statutory powers by the Minister of Local Government to stymie the Council’s efforts at management and control of their staff and their programme of work.

MANDELA TO HAAG BOSCH

Several years ago it was known that the Mandela dump site was incapable of further expansion and that an alternative site was necessary. The Government announced grandiose proposals for the new site and the nation was assured that the necessary environmental impact study had been completed.

Residents of the surrounding communities of Republic and Eccles Park were invited to meetings where the details of the plan were explained and assurances given that their health concerns were addressed.

Nothing was heard of these grandiose plans for years until a few weeks ago when the belated announcement was made that the new site would have been completed by August 1, 2010.

The contractor has now made it abundantly clear that such expectations were ill-founded as the contract completion was originally fixed for 2011. It is clear that the Government‘s announcement was ill-founded or, at best, premature.

The reality which now faces the Mayor and City Council is that they have to continue using the Mandela site with all its imperfections and the health hazards that it poses for the citizens in the surrounding area.

What is also significant is the non-response of the Government to requests by the City Council for discussions on the continued use of the Mandela Dump site. It is, therefore, disingenuous for the Government and, particularly, President Jagdeo and the Minister of Local Government, to try to place this debacle at the feet of the Council.

It is also disingenuous for the Minister of Local Government to disassociate himself from the problems facing the City Council and their capacity to fund the garbage collection for which they are responsible.

THE TOWN COUNCIL

The City Council, despite its numerous constraints and problems, cannot escape its responsibilities. They need to address the numerous inefficiencies highlighted in the media recently, but that is not the subject of this column today.

In a Press Conference, held on Tuesday July 13, 2010, the Mayor of Georgetown informed the nation of the dilemma facing the Council. Among the matters disclosed were that: Many parts of the city have been cleared, but all could not be cleared because of the limited resources available.

* The garbage pile-up in the city is partly due to the expectation that Haag Bosch would have been ready to receive waste from the city from August 1, 2010;

* Maintaining the Mandela site is difficult because of the lack of equipment and other resources;

* The inability of the Council to meet its obligations, to contractors who have been working for several months without pay, largely because the municipality has not been able to broaden its revenue base and the existing tax collection cannot finance the many services that the Council is required to provide

* The main property owner in Georgetown is the government, but they have been among the most delinquent and have not yet paid taxes for the second and third quarter of 2010 which are already due and payable.

* Among the delinquent taxpayers are GNIC: owing $79million in taxes; Ocean View Hotel: $50 million; Kingston Milk Plant: $62 million; Fisheries limited: $121 million; and

* The Council has had to resort to taking legal action to collect outstanding taxes from several taxpayers, but the wheels of justice are moving very slowly.

LIMITED REVENUE SOURCES

Any objective evaluation of the problems being faced by the Georgetown City Council would lead to the conclusion that a fundamental issue is its capability, in the context of its limited revenue sources, to undertake its onerous responsibilities. It is obvious that the revenue base must be expanded.

It cannot be successfully argued that Councils in the past have not attempted to address this issue.

The most significant example was the attempt by the Council to have a City Lottery with its proceeds going directly to the upkeep of the City. The same Government that refused to approve such a scheme by the City Council subsequently approved a similar lottery which has earned billions of dollars that have been placed in a special account at the Office of the President to be used at the whims and fancies of President Jagdeo.

The failure of the Government to follow the directions of the Auditor General to pay that money into the consolidated Funds required by law is instructive. If indeed President Jagdeo is so concerned about the welfare of the citizens of Georgetown and the Government had good reason for refusing the Georgetown City Council’s request for their own lottery, why has he not seen it fit to allocate all or a significant portion of the revenue from that lottery that is under his exclusive control to the City of Georgetown?

Additionally, it is a well established practice in cities throughout the world for the City to be empowered to raise revenue from other economic activities within their boundaries. That explains why, for example, it is common practice to have at least three levels of taxes, (city, state and Federal taxes) in the USA. This is not rocket science. The reality is that the Government of Guyana has adamantly refused to devolve any such authority to the six municipal councils in the country.

Road licences, taxes on businesses, wharves and other economic activities have remained with the State. The argument advanced was that the Government would continue to centrally collect those taxes and proportionately allocate some of those revenues to the City Council, as a matter of right, in the form of annual subventions.

The PPP Administration has, however, treated such transfers as a discretionary measure to be used as a political bargaining chip to control the City Council since they have failed to do so through municipal elections.

The action by the Government is therefore a manifestation of this policy.

Those who argue that the appointment of an Interim Management Committee (IMC) will resolve the problem, either fail and or refuse to discern the reality. The appointment of an IMC by the PPP in 1994 was also intended to satisfy that objective.

The plan was to remove the then Council to facilitate the huge transfer of funds to the City prior to the Local Government elections so that any improvement to the city would not have been attributed to the incumbent Council. They then subsequently released huge resources and encouraged private sector involvement to prepare the conditions for a political campaign which eventually proved disastrous for them.

After such failure at the Local Government Elections, with only seven councillors elected to the thirty-member City Council, they resorted to their old manoeuvers to make the Council ineffective and unable to undertake its mandate. Sadly, the lives of the citizens of Georgetown became hostage to the PPP lust for political control of the City.

IRRESPONSIBLE MINISTERIAL BEHAVIOUR

It is, therefore, most irresponsible, at best, for the Minister of Local Government to express the view that the issue of garbage is a matter only for the Georgetown City Council.

Questions to which the Minister should be providing answers include:

When will Government pay their outstanding rates and taxes due and payable to the Georgetown City Council?

When will the Government pay the annual subvention and its taxes due and payable also to the New Amsterdam City Council?

When will the Government honour its obligation to pay to the City Council an appropriate subvention commensurate with the taxes it collects from the Georgetown area?

These are the matters that should concern Minister Kellawan Lall. Instead, the Minister, by his recent remarks about wanting the garbage to pile up in the city to become a health hazard so that he can remove the Council, has exposed the real intentions of the PPP Administration in allowing the situation to deteriorate to the extent that it has.

VISIONLESS??

President Jagdeo’s recent outbursts about the garbage disposal crisis swamping City Hall and about “a visionless City Council”, will fool no one. His remarks about the Government having no alternative to continue to help the Council, also reveal his mental state as it relates to his Government’s obligations. The reality cannot be hidden since the behaviour of his administration confirms the above analysis of their true objectives.

The health of the citizens of Georgetown and the state of the capital city are too important to become pawns of a dirty political game. It is time for the Jagdeo Administration to cease playing politics with the City Council and honour its responsibilities.

The deplorable state of the garbage situation in the capital city, although the responsibility of the M&CC of Georgetown, is, therefore, reflective of the spitefulness of the Jagdeo Administration.

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