There is nothing but a parasite mentality ensconced at City Hall

Nov 16, 2017 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The time has long past for APNU+AFC to harness the runaway monster that keeps making Guyana’s capital city a disgrace. True, the M&CC of Georgetown has been bad for more than fifty years. But I doubt that any of the M&CCs has been as repulsive as the present M&CC.
Even as I write this note, the employees of the M&CC of Georgetown are begging for their wages, often waiting on bailouts before they receive their wages. In the meantime, garbage is mounting, because the M&CC is unable and unwilling to pay contractors.
Yet with the rapidly collapsing city infrastructure and services, with employees begging at their doors, the Mayor, her City Clerk, a senior councilor and her chief engineer went on a lengthy joyride in China. They traveled first class, enjoyed the high life in China, while the lowly employees go hungry.
Incidentally the Mayor, her city clerk and chief engineer never told anyone at the city council that they were going to China. The Deputy Mayor was told just before the globetrotters left that he was going to be in charge, but he was only told that the mayor would be out of town. He was not told that those four individuals were going to be at the opposite end of the world. But while this was a secret to most Guyanese, it was not a secret to at least four high ranking government officials.
It was just a secret to the Deputy Mayor, the majority of councilors, the citizens of Georgetown, the Guyanese people. They sneaked out like thieves in the night, except the sneaking out was facilitated by APNU+AFC.
The citizens of Georgetown deserve better. Their city government has failed them. They have failed them for more than 50 years. In all that time, the city government has been under the iron-fisted control of the People’s National Congress.
During the PPP tenure, there was often a desire to intervene and impose an interim city government. Indeed, for a short period in the early 1990s, the Cheddi Jagan-led PPP government terminated the then city government and replaced it with an interim government, with Dr. James Rose as the Mayor. That interim government has a track record of achievement that is far superior to for any Georgetown city government since the 1960s.
Bharat Jagdeo, as President, on more than one occasion floated the idea of an interim government to stop the destruction under the Hamilton Green-led PNC City Government, but the then Robert Corbin-led PNC rejected the efforts. I am certain that the PPP will not now object to the replacement of the present city government.
Even as the citizens of Georgetown objected to the imposition of a draconian parking meter system, Mayor Chase-Green, her City Clerk and the PNC right hand man, the man who dictates what happens, Oscar Clarke, went to Mexico to be wined and dined by the Parking Meter contractor. Even as Georgetown was suffocating in garbage and drowning in floods, the Mayor, her Clerk and the hand-picked PNC Councilors were on international escapades. They have a real love affair with these big international trips, while Georgetown is taken over by garbage.
The time has come for the M&CC to provide an account for 2015, 2016 and 2017 for all international trips, exactly what the costs were, who paid, and how much of the total costs for international travels have come out of the coffers of the City. It is time we have an account of the cost of maintaining the Mayor, the City Councilors and the Town Clerk.
Does anyone know what the Mayor’s salary and benefits are? Does anyone know what the salary and benefits of the Town Clerk are? The citizens will be shocked to find out the cost of supporting a royalty lifestyle for their Mayor and her small group of favored personnel.
The PPP government had to step in many times to rescue an inept PNC council under Hamilton Green. Billions were repeatedly poured into the city to bail them out, while they were protected by the PNC-led Opposition in Parliament and their threat to violently oppose any effort to remove them.
Since May 2015, APNU+AFC has protected the city government and has stood strong and unapologetically with them. There is nothing but a parasite mentality ensconced at City Hall in Georgetown. The time has come for APNU+AFC to act on behalf of the citizens of Georgetown and our country.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

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