The Georgetown Mayor is talking nonsense

Aug 16, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Mayor of Georgetown said that the motion to have a forensic audit was not properly worded. Why do you need a motion to have a forensic audit of City Hall for the years going back to the nineties up to the present time? A forensic audit is a bureaucratic decision. It comes into being when it is ordered by the hierarchy of an institution. There was no motion before the Cabinet last year to have forensic audits of different public sector institutions that have recently concluded.
The result of the forensic audit of the Georgetown Hospital is causing controversy. How did the audit come about? Did someone on the hospital board move a motion? Of course any organization can accept a motion about anything, but administrative power is the fulcrum on which decisions rest. You do not need a formal motion at the City Council to have a forensic audit. The City Council acting as a collective body makes decisions which are binding at City Hall.
Any councilor who tells the citizens of Georgetown that a formal motion to the council on the audit has to take place would be guilty of deception. The decision to have a forensic check on the books of City Hall is simple. At one of the statutory meetings, chaired by the Mayor, the Mayor herself can ask for a forensic audit. The table then goes into discussion on the merits and demerits. If confusion reigns and there is no distinct consensus, the Mayor can then ask for a vote. If a majority around the table votes for the probe, then the administrative arm (which is the Town Clerk) sets the process in motion.
Mayor Patricia Chase-Green is on record as saying that she welcomes a forensic audit. All she has to do is to put it to the table. In fact, any councilor at a statutory meeting can request that the City Council accept an examination of its books by a professional firm of accountants. If, after the deliberations, there is consensus then the process begins. What is this nonsense about the wording of the motion as adumbrated by the Mayor? The Mayor must tell the citizens of Georgetown if the City Council can make a decision on its own to have a probe of its spending and use of money without there being a formal motion put to the table.
Then there is the other dimension. The Local Government Commission can order a forensic audit of any municipality. In the absence of the Commission, the Minister of Communities can secure the services of a professional body to do the job. The simple fact is that the law empowers the Commission to so act once the Commission is functioning. Since we don’t have the Commission at the moment, the onus is on the Minister to do the right thing.
Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan is one of the better Ministers of the Coalition Government. He stands to lose credibility if he avoids making that decision. It doesn’t look like the City Council will entertain the auditors, so the Government has to step in. How can you get the citizenry to embrace and accept the findings of several forensic audits specifically designed to investigate financial skullduggery and illicit spending of the previous Government, but not at the City Hall, a place where if a poll was taken tomorrow of Georgetowners, there would be a landslide victory in favour of probing the books of City Hall?
But more importantly, the Government’s refusal to investigate City Hall will play dangerously into the hands of the PPP and it will have racially charged overtones.
The PPP will tell its supporters the Coalition Government wants to expose financial wrongdoing when the PPP was in power, but is protecting its own people who have run the City Council for twenty years and cannot account for hundreds of millions of dollars. Such demagoguery will resonate with the PPP’s rural constituencies and before you know it, the race genie will be out of the bottle.
It is public knowledge, going back more than 15 years, that financial accountability has not been a normal feature of City Hall. What is even more shocking is that in the age of post-2015 governmental openness, the City Council has continued with its old, depraved ways in the area of financial cleanness. It is not that there needs to be a forensic audit of City Hall, the point is that such a course of action should have been done since last year. City Council will not investigate itself. Some other entity or organization has to do it.

2 thoughts on “The Georgetown Mayor is talking nonsense”

Pam August 16, 2016 at 9:12 pm

They are scared of what will be discovered.
19CAGriffith48 August 16, 2016 at 10:22 pm

“The Mayor of Georgetown said that the motion to have a forensic audit was not properly worded. ”

Her remarks confirms two of the four biggest lies told .
The Auditor saying, I’m here to help you, and
The Auditee saying, I’m glad you are here.

Oh, the third is – the check is in the mail . The fourth cannot be stated during FAMILY HOUR.

Keep on exposing these folks of all stripes.