IS GEORGETOWN NEGLECTED?

Dec 08, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

In 2009, the government spent close to $150 million repairing pumps for some of the major pumping stations in Georgetown. In the same year they spent millions repairing roads that were the responsibility of the City Hall.
In that same year also, the government signed an agreement with City Hall to provide the municipality with funds to the tune of $120m per year, payable in monthly tranches of $10 M. The Council would have control over the use of the funds for specified purposes and subject to the council reaching certain benchmark indicators.
Today there are persons who are trying to enjoin the government the blame for the poor state of Georgetown. The claim is that while the management of the City is poor, Government has neglected to assist and wants City Hall to fail.
No government would want the capital to be in the state that it is in. And the present PPP administration has consistently over the years provided assistance to help City Hall. But no responsible government is going to any longer throw water down the drain by pouring more millions into the coffers of City Hall. Too much has been wasted on that body and no more should be given to it.
It is very much like a parent giving more money to a child who then uses it to gamble. There comes a time when the parent, as much as he loves that child, has to draw the line and refuse to give that child more money because to do so would be to feed the gambling habit of that child.
The government has obligations to the Council. It is required to pay its taxes and it does. It has on many occasions in the past been forced to intervene to help pay workers because City Hall had cash flow problems. It may very well have to do so again.
It has provided City Hall with garbage trucks only to find that months later they were parked. It has continued to repair roads. It has now thrown in its lot to help collect garbage and this past week it deployed hundreds of workers in a three-day exercise to help clean the drains and canals around the city.
Yet we find persons editorializing about the lack of Government support. No responsible Government will continue to throw money away on City Hall.
It is not that the government wants City Hall. The municipality has long failed. It had failed long before the present Council took over and in the interceding years since the last local government elections there has been no change.
Desmond Hoyte, the former President of Guyana, was forced to appoint someone to mobilize resources for the collection of rubbish in the City. He later expressed no-confidence in the Council.
So the government does not need to set out to fail the Council. The Council has failed and should morally step aside.
The opposition speaks about promoting accountability and the failure of policy, but they are not calling on the very-opposition supported council to resign. In fact, it is resisting calls for an IMC to be appointed even though they themselves were part of precedent in appointing an IMC for Linden.
They do not wish to hold the Council accountable. They are not calling for the Council to resign. And they are insisting that the Council should only be changed through local government elections and not by ministerial edict as was the case with the Linden municipality.
But perhaps Linden was a special case; it has always been treated as a special case.
The protests, therefore, about the government allowing Georgetown to degenerate, rings hollow. The government would be acting irresponsibly if on top of the millions that are being spent to ensure that the infrastructure is maintained in the City, it should bail out this body which collects hundreds of millions of dollars each year in rates and taxes, yet cannot provide decent services to the residents.
No more money should be thrown at the Council because that money could be better used and should be better used for other purposes.

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IS GEORGETOWN NEGLECTED?

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