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Keith Burrowes’ report on City Hall…Mayor, Councilors say not to blame for non-implementation
Mayor and City Councilors (M&CC) are taking no blame for the non-implementation of the 2012 recommendations made by government officer Keith Burrowes. A report and subsequent proposal was the result of a probe into the functions of the M&CC, but none of Burrowes’ 45 recommendations were put into effect, despite its general aim to develop and revamp City Hall’s administrative procedures.
Keith Burrowes
The Council is adamant that they are in full support of the Burrowes report, but charged that its non- implementation is no fault of the Mayor and Councilors, since they play no part in the actual execution of duties. The Mayor, in response to questions on the report, is convinced that the proposals are intentionally not being implemented by the authorities.
He explained that the Municipality consists of an administration or political directorate and once, “we, the political directorate accept the content, philosophy of a report or recommendation, there’s not much else we can do; it is now left in every society, to the bureaucracy to implement those decisions.”
The Mayor said that, Burrowes himself had expressed frustration toward the progress being made, but “the irony is that… the constitution requires that the parliament ensures that there is an appointed Local Government Commission to deal with staff, Local Government authorities, but the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government did a maneuver and continued so that the Commission’s power resides with the minister.”
The Mayor suggested that as human beings, if someone is employed by a party who has the authority to discipline them, then that worker stays in line, but if one is hired, and someone else has the authority to discipline, then that individual can be errant. That is the case, he explained, where the Council makes a decision but it is not carried out because it (Council) does not have the authority to discipline.
Greene rejected further, talk that laid blame on the Council for not implementing the Burrowes’ recommendation; “There is nothing else that we can do,” he charged.
When asked about the report’s implementation before Sooba as Town Clerk, the Mayor reiterated that it is an ongoing process where the Council is unable to get one hundred percent co-operation out of the Town Clerks, “who were imposed.”
Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase- Green injected that, as a member of the Commission of Inquiry for the Burrowes report, she remembered when the report was accepted by Council and Ministers of Local Government; “we saw the exit of then Town Clerk Ms. Beula Williams, and Treasurer Rodrick Burrow.”
Ms Yonette Pluck was another Town Clerk imposed on the Council Chase-Green said. “During that time while we were about to implement Burrowes’ report, we saw the exit of Ms Pluck, the Treasurer, Mr. Andrew Merridith, the engineer and three other officers.” Then came Sooba, and Mr. Ron Mc Calmont. Chase-Green continued that Mr. Burrowes had even loaned the Council a secretary to Sooba, to aid and assist in the implementation of the Burrowes report, but it was recognized that neither the Town Clerk nor the Treasurer had implemented any of the recommendations.
City Hall
“In the last 16 months of Sooba being Town Clerk, we were supposed to be implementing the report, the secretary for whatever reason, could not work with Ms Sooba and left.” Chase- Green highlighted that the Keith Burrowes probe came really for the Treasurer’s department, but investigations overlapped into other departments where other discrepancies were found.
She stated that, “downstairs (where transaction departments are housed) seems to be an island by itself that operates with the Town Clerk and Treasurer by itself”.
Chase- Green concluded that the Council could only make recommendations at the level of the Council. “Once accepted, it is the administration, specifically the Town Clerk who has to implement it. She has to write to the officers according to Chapter 28:01 of the Constitution and tell them the Council’s decisions, if she does not agree with a decision, she can offer advice, but if it is not accepted, her disapproval can be recorded, but she cannot refuse to carry out decisions.”
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