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There is a lot wrong with City Hall
Dear Editor,
There is something that is seriously and fundamentally wrong with the accounting and financial management systems of the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown, that needs to be urgently and comprehensively addressed, before the municipality is destroyed.
Even though it is clear that the elected Council is not in charge as it should be, but rather just the Mayor, Finance Chairman, the Town Clerk and a few other powerful Councillors, all of them will have to take the blame when the day of reckoning comes. Almost every conceivable municipal fee has been jacked up including a special fee which is being applied to both commercial and industrial waste either solid or liquid, barber and hairdressers licences, property rates increased by 10 percent, certificate of compliance fees increased by a whopping 750 %, the illegal container fee is to be increased, markets stall rents have spiraled upwards and in spite of all of this revenue increase the city is more broke than ever.
All of this is due to the fact that the council maintains a massive and highly paid staff of over 800 employees whilst at the same time, retaining a huge cadre of extremely well paid contractors.
Then there is the scandal of the council deducting National Insurance Scheme, Guyana Revenue Authority and Credit Union contributions from employees’ salaries but not been paying these monies to those entities, clearly a violation of the laws of Guyana. Should SOCU and SARA not be called in?
The Auditor General’s office has been unable to audit the books for years because of the disappearance of records, yet it is well known that the council is in a perpetual state of financial crisis with no proper accountability or transparency for the billions of dollars it received and spent over the last three years.
The members of the Council’s Finance Committee seem to be operating in an ivory tower approving massive expenditure for items that have not been tendered for nor undergone competitive bidding and without contracts being presented to full Council for examination and approval.
Then there is the big scam involving many persons who were granted amnesty, reductions or waivers on interest on rates and taxes owed to the council, but without the requisite approval being given.
Almost every citizen of our capital is aware that the City Council is being mismanaged. Flooding of our city is becoming a norm due to the drains and canals not being cleaned, with some not being cleaned for years. Most of the municipality’s buildings are falling, including the main City Hall building, the city abattoir and all of the markets. But who will bell the cat?
In the meanwhile, the ‘Cabal’ continues to proceed willy nilly on foreign trips to China, to Jamaica, the USA and just about every continent available without any tangible benefits. With the Council’s financial crises should there not be a halt to these useless foreign trips?
There must be a forensic audit of the Council now before everything collapses and disappears.
With thanks
Sincerely,
Mark Roopan
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