Georgetown’s local government is a failed institution

Aug 07, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Once again the garbage contractors have had to withdraw their services due to hundreds of millions of dollars being owed to them, and the Council is hardly making any effort to alleviate this debt. What is new? In fact, this time the Council, through its administrative officer is trying strong arm tactics of nullifying their contract if they don’t continue working without pay.
Would that same administrative officer or any of his more than eight hundred colleagues continue to work in spite of not being paid for two years? One wonders however, with so much works contracted out, why is there need for so many workers, or are some of them phantoms or dummies?
Let us face it, the Mayor and Councilors government as the local government of the City of Georgetown is and has been a failed institution for some time now. How much more hundreds of millions of dollars do they owe the power company, water authority, their fuel suppliers etc. Council is up to their ears in debt but continues to spend lavishly on itself.
With bodyguards, luxury vehicles, frequent foreign travel, they continue to abuse the city’s resources for personal use. The overtime at M&CC, is appalling. It must be the only place in Guyana where the overtime is rivaling the overall employment cost. Additionally the issuance and use of fuel is inordinately high but this is not surprising as fuel is issued to private vehicles when they are going on their retreats etc.
The Government of Guyana, a few years ago, handed over seven new garbage trucks to City Council. And what did they do with them? The actually failed to maintain and repair them then sold most of them to these very contractors recently that they owe, for little or nothing, and now have the audacity to say that they are going to nullify the contracts and take back the service and do it themselves. With what, donkey carts?
Why is the Ministry of Communities turning a Nelson’s eye to these situations? When will they stop bailing out the Council and force them to curtail their profligate expenditure. When will they have them audited and more accountable? Is this the way our capital city should be run?
James McOnnell

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