CITY HALL IS A SELL OUT

Feb 14, 2017 Editorial, Features / Columnists

On May 11, 2015, the citizens of Guyana elected the APNU+AFC coalition government to bring about the much needed change it had promised during the campaign. There was no doubt that this government would improve their well-being. The people had got rid of an oppressive regime which had denied them their freedom, violated the constitution, raped and pauperized the country and showed contempt for the people.

Less than two years in office, some believe that the government has abandoned the people, especially the poor and the powerless who elected it to office. On the one hand, it had reduced the value added tax (VAT) from 16 percent to 14 percent. On the other hand, it has taxed from to water and electricity. There is now parking meter.

The massive protests against the parking meters have clearly shown that the people are prepared to fight back. The parking meter contract has been released to the public and the details are shocking. It seems that the duo at City Hall—the Mayor and Town Clerk— signed the contract with their eyes tightly closed. No sane individual would sign such contract.

A perusal of the secret contract shows that they have given away the entire Georgetown to Smart City Solutions (SCS) – a foreign company with no known address. Based on the contract, SCS could extend the length of the contract to 98 years and that City Hall is barred from terminating it. It exempts SCS from all costs, legal and otherwise and that City Hall will bear the full cost in the event the contracted is terminated or SCS is sued.

The contract has also given SCS carte-blanche to establish distinct and multiple Parking Zones within the City which shall be subjected to metered parking fees and fines, including the right to charge for parking beyond 19:00hrs in places such as restaurants/clubs which are typically frequented during evening hours.

The contract is absurd and those who signed it on behalf of the city should be investigated for fraud. It is highly suspicious. However, the buck stops with the Council who must rescind the contract. It is new ground for the government to continue to say that City Hall is an independent entity and that it cannot intervene. This is exactly the case in New York and those other metropolitan countries where the inner cities are laws unto themselves.

Yet some people feel that the government should scrap the contract. They want it to usurp the power of the council. They say that it cannot allow City Hall to hurt the people anymore and to operate as a state within a state.

To make matters worse, the government which is the caretaker of the country has allowed SCS to pull wool over its eyes by pretending to disassociate itself from the profaned-laced diatribe by Ifa Cush; a Director of the company who signed the contract. The convicted felon insulted the residents of Georgetown and all Guyanese by calling them freeloaders, a cabal of unproductive misfits with slave mentality and indentured servants with no gravitas, no moral authority and who lack the intestinal fortitude to control their destiny.

How the government could stand idly by and allow such a dastardly attack on its people by the Director of SCS? How could the Ministries of Legal Affairs and Finance examine the contract and not recommend its termination? No country in the Caribbean has parking meters.

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