The 100 million City Hall grab that got rejected

May 11, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
The frenzied eagerness and quick acceptance of a proposal to host the 51st Flag Raising Ceremony at the Stabroek Square (now removed to D’Urban Park) by a senior administrative official of the Georgetown Municipality and the almost immediate demand for one hundred million dollars to prepare the venue, is yet another pellucid display of the venality and ineptitude of the Council’s Administration.
In the first instance, without having a comprehensive estimate prepared, without doing a strategic plan of the development of the area, and without even consulting the stakeholders including the vendors, taxi operators, and businesses in the area, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, this official just nonchalantly came up with this round mammoth figure. How funny!
Of course there would not have been any bidding or adherence to national tender procedures, but rather just like the parking meter scam, the works would have been handed to their favourite contractor, who is the ‘Francis or Jack of all trades’ and these hard earned taxpayer dollars would have disappeared into the pockets of a few.
When will the President stop having confidence in these vultures at City Hall? When will decent, honest, visionary, and competent persons be placed to manage our city’s affairs?
Persons who could come up with designs and proposals that would see the transformation of the downtown area, including relieving the traffic congestion, the vending problem, the crime infestation, the bellowing music carts, the three card tricksters and the general chaos of that area.
Thankfully the government smelt the rat and stopped the Council’s officials from putting their hands into taxpayers’ pockets and extracting a cool 100 million, by returning the ceremony to Durban Park.
Indeed, in normal circumstances the idea of using the Stabroek Market area would not a bad one due to the historic nature of the area, the centrality of the location and the layout of the region which would have allowed the military to march up and down Brickdam before doing their tattoo display.
But thanks to the Georgetown City Council, the area is far from ideal for hosting any such activity.
Embarrassingly the Stabroek Tower Clocks which were to be fixed to usher in the Jubilee year are still not working.
All but a few of the bulbs that adorned the Market for last year’s special anniversary have blown and have not been replaced, vagrants have made several parts of this area their homes, there are several derelict or abandoned buildings in the area such as the Old GNCB Headquarters and the building which was formerly a gas station, the Stelling and wharf area aback of the market is in tatters and a threat to life and limb. And yet the Council feels justified in wanting to just make some cosmetic improvements and then host the Country’s birthday bash.
All in all, much is left to be desired of the area and hosting such an event there would only give the Council another opportunity to create more hardship and confusion for the vendors, taxi and mini bus operators, commuters, and shoppers.
The Council needs to permanently fix the area, and stop doing clean up drives for special occasions, which only benefits the contractors who are improperly given the tasks of effecting these clean up exercises.
Anu Bihari

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