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City Council meeting ends prematurely

Jun 26, 2012 News

 

…’falsified’ accounts spark call for CID intervention

 

The Georgetown Municipality’s statutory meeting came to a premature end yesterday as Councillors expressed their desire not to work with the senior officers who were recently fingered in fraud allegations.
This stemmed from a proposal by Councillor Ranwell Jordan that the Council write the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Ganga Persaud, again requesting Town Clerk Yonette Pluck, Treasurer Andrew Meredith and City Engineer Gregory Erskine, be sent on vacation leave to facilitate a thorough internal investigation.
The presence of the officers still executing their “duties” at City hall is an indication that Persaud has not responded to Council’s request to send them on vacation leave. As such, he proposed that a letter should be sent to the Minister requesting an urgent meeting where this matter could be discussed.
The proposal was seconded by Councillor Ahmad Rahaman with a majority of councillors voting in favour.
However, Councillor Kamla Ross was adamant that the officers remain at work because they are answerable. Ross argued that Councillors should accept responsibility for some of the officers’ actions since they failed to see that recommendations by Keith Burrowes be implemented to better City Hall.  Her comments infuriated Councillors.
Deputy Mayor Patricia Greene-Ross, obviously annoyed, shouted for Ross to “shut up”. Greene mumbled that Councillors who do not attend statutory meetings regularly should not comment on these matters.
Greene indicated that the absence of the officers from City Hall would help to preserve documents. She emphasized that the “Cash Liquidity Statement Re: General Fund A/C 653-019-0 as at June 25, 2012” is erroneous.
Meredith, who was the only one of the three officers under question to be present at the meeting, accepted that some figures were incorrect in the financial statement. Greene deemed that as “nonsense” and demanded that he present Council with the correct information.
She expressed hope that the incorrect document presented to Council is not as a result of activities that took place in the Treasury Department over the weekend. The Deputy Mayor threatened that there may be need to call in the Criminal Investigation Department if documents will disappear from City Hall.
Chairman of the Finance Committee, Junior Garrett, also recalled a similar instance where the telephone bill amounting to over $1.2M for April- June was destroyed. He emphasized that such documents should not be destroyed until seven years have elapsed.
With all the financial discrepancies ongoing at City Hall and the fact that the organization has no money except for a bank overdraft of $20M staff may not be paid timely this month. Meredith noted that not all last month salaries have been paid.
The Mayor and City Council has been under investigation several times before. The latest investigation was carried out by Ramon Gaskin under the management of Keith Burrowes.
It has been revealed that the council owes over $1B to various entities and took a $40.999M loan without the permission of the Local Government Ministry.
Kaieteur News has learnt that if the findings of the report are to be confirmed, the issue “will become a police matter.”

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