Business community and citizen have no confidence in City Hall

Aug 26, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Georgetown Municipality could not be serious in its call for an increase and improvement in its revenue collection rate. Is it not quite obvious to them by now, that the citizenry at large and the business community in particular that belong to Georgetown and beyond, have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the Council to manage properly and account for the money it collects on a daily basis?
And who could blame them for their lack of confidence? An agency such as the Council which should have its accounts qualified and presented for scrutiny on a yearly basis to the Audit Office of Guyana and to the citizens of Georgetown has not done so for over a decade. This is wholly unacceptable. In any decent, progressive and democratic society, at the very least the Chief Administrative and Chief Financial Officers would have long been given pink slips and sent along their way, but not here in Georgetown. In fact they have even been given acclamations in some quarters for cleaning up the city for the Jubilee celebrations, in spite of their complete lack of accountability.
To add insult to injury, The Town Clerk has indicated his desire to obtain funding including loans and grants from international organizations and foreign countries. That is unbelievable. Which credible foreign agency do they think would even consider putting a dime into the black hole of City Hall? Clearly they are mistaking the charity of the Central Government who has been bailing them out for decades now, as some endorsement of its crooked accounting system.
The first step that must be taken before any consideration be given to give the Council a blind cent whether from local or foreign entities, is the qualification and presentation of its accounts to the Audit Office of Guyana, its accounts for the last ten years. The second non-negotiable step has to be the effecting of a deep and thorough forensic audit of its financial and human resource systems by a private, competent and independent audit agency, with the findings presented to parliament debated and made public.
The third requirement is for the Council to recommence making its yearly budget a public document, so that the citizens could be apprised of its proposed work programmes and expenditure along with its projected revenue. In the meanwhile, until the Council gets its act together, it would be foolish to give the Council more money such as the container tax, and the parking meter fees which would only exacerbate the problem that it has with corruption, nepotism and fiscal impropriety.
Sean Moniz

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