Latest update April 6th, 2025 11:06 AM
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- High Court bars GRA from seizing Team Mohamed’s luxury vehicles
- Oil spill will hit Guyana’s shores before capping stack arrives to plug leak
- UN says 100 children killed or injured in Gaza every day since war resumed
- Guyana received US$605M oil money in first quarter of 2025
- ‘Tariff war’ spells grave danger for the Region – CARICOM Chair Mottley
NO ONE SEEMS TO BE IN CHARGE?
It seems that those who are entrusted to manage the affairs of the state at the regional level are doing a poor job. Some are abusing their authority to the extent that they are not making wise decisions on behalf of the regions.
Certainly, this is not the change the people voted for in 2015, and if the authority does not act, it could face serious consequences.
We have the case in Region Five where the Regional Executive Officer (REO) has threatened to withhold the salaries of teachers who have decided to travel abroad during the time when schools are closed. This break with tradition is nonsensical because even though such laws are in place, they have not been enforced. Imposing such a penalty only on the teachers in Region Five is discriminatory.
The decision seems to be based on the exercise of raw power and lack of common-sense. However, the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Education has contradicted the REO by stating that there is no policy in place to withhold salaries from teachers going overseas during the period when schools are closed.
We now turn to Region Ten where the police claimed that the REO had overstepped his authority by preventing them from enforcing the law, protecting lives, and limiting civil disorder. As reported in this publication, on Independence Day, May 26, some residents at Linden had complained to the police about loud music in the wee hours of the morning on the Bayrock Ground.
The police intervened and stopped the music. But the REO of the Region allegedly ordered the police to leave the premises and threatened to transfer them if they disobeyed his command. The REO allegedly stated that Linden is not run by the police but by an administration of which he is the boss.
It should be noted that this is the same REO who allegedly ordered the transfer of the previous Commander, Calvin Brutus whom he claimed had arrested one of his friends. It was also alleged that the Police Commander sided with the REO and disputed what was told by the police out of fear that he too would be transferred. However, a video recording revealed that the police officers had told the truth.
It seems that the Georgetown City Council is a runaway train wreck. First, it was the parking meter fiasco which was suspended for three months after weeks of protests by citizens. Now it is alleged that the City has been renting portable toilets at a monthly cost of more than the price for a new toilet.
This is happening at a time when the city is strapped for cash and the government has ordered cost cutting measures within its various ministries and state agencies. Instead of spending millions of dollars per month on the rental of toilets, the City should purchase toilets and charge a fee for usage.
There are more startling revelations of how government officials continue to spend the taxpayers’ money recklessly. This publication has obtained information that the PS at the Ministry of Education has spent more than one and a half million dollars to build two security huts; one at his residence and the other at the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs prior to his transfer to the Ministry of Education.
Concerns have also been raised over the duty free concessions granted to the Head of Customs and the interference of a senior official of the GRA to prevent the arrest and impounding of an SUV with false license plates. No one has been disciplined for such lawless and reckless behavior which suggests that no one is in charge in the management of the state.
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