The City Council can save money by curtailing its extravagant spending

Aug 29, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
After reading a letter captioned ‘The M&CC cannot hire contractors it cannot afford’ written by the Town Clerk of Georgetown who has assumed the title of Municipal Clerk, one which he has created and assumed in what appears to be an effort to convey esteem but which lacks legal standing, I felt compelled to highlight a number of inconsistencies contained therein.
Beginning with the title of the letter, there is a considerable conflict with that caption and what obtains at the Georgetown Municipality, as there are lots of things that are done at that City Council that they simply cannot afford but they continue doing nonetheless. These include frequent extravagant travel around the world by the ‘Fabulous Four’ and their cohorts, use and abuse of luxury sports utility vehicles by the ‘Bigwigs’ and their families, superfluous staffers attending to these persons including bodyguards, personal assistants, secretarial staff, chauffeurs, static security at their residences etc.
But getting into the content of this long winded epistle, I would like to debunk the claim that ‘Historically, the council has always struggled for money’. This is just simply not true. If one were to do research in the archives, one would see that beginning with the Mayorship of John Croal all the way to the 1980’s under the astute, honest and accomplished stewardship of Town Clerks E. A. Adams and Elmo Mayers, and City Treasurers Cyril Ramalho and Patrick Robinson, the Georgetown Municipality was a financially solvent and economically viable institution.
It carried out administrative and financial best practices that caused the ‘Garden City’ to be the envy of the Caribbean. The economic malfeasance and administrative irresponsibility we see now, and which is being alluded to in the letter, is of more recent vintage
He speaks contemptuously of the council needing to pay in excess of $50M per month to contactors to haul and dispose of the city’s waste, which incidentally is a vital public health service, but conveniently fails to mention that the City pays more than twice of that, each month, to underwrite its bloated and top heavy payroll of the Council that is stuffed with friends, church pals and family members of the Big Enchiladas at City Hall, who do little or nothing all day long.
He continues whining about revenue shortfalls, but one has to wonder if he has ever heard of the concept of fiscal restraint to facilitate economic growth at the council, and responsible spending to balance their secret budget that is never made available to the citizenry.
The ultimate irony of the letter is when he says ‘The reality is that the council cannot hire contractors it cannot afford’. Does this include the son of one of the political leaders in the council that gets contracts to clean the cemetery and other places without bidding? Does it include the gentleman who is well known to be a good friend of a senior administrative officer and who moved from being a money lender and puri vendor to becoming one of the biggest contractors in the city? Does it include the contractor that builds presidential parks, and stables on the mall or bridges around the city without adhering to tender board procedures?
He ends the letter with a sarcastic joke that will crack all citizens up when he says that ‘The council takes its responsibility seriously. It will not compromise the health and well-being of its citizens’. Is this gentleman living in Georgetown or in Diamond?
Deodarie Putulall

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