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Passing the buck
Well, finally and gradually the veil of secrecy that has covered the corruption, nepotism, mismanagement and other wrongdoings at City Hall is being lifted. And it seems that persons are now running helter skelter, dashing for cover whilst pointing fingers at each other. This is popularly known as ‘passing the buck’.
But this is just the beginning, the very surface of the cesspool that the Georgetown City Hall is. As the Commission of Inquiry delves a little deeper, it will confound the citizenry what will be revealed from the fiscal malfeasance, to the nepotism in the human resources, to the wastage of the property rates, to the featherbedding among its ranks.
But listening to the King and Queen, one gets the impression that they have long lost touch with reality, that they have retreated into La La Land, where they seem to have convinced themselves and a few of their cohorts that they have done nothing wrong, and that they have in fact at great personal sacrifice, rescued our capital city from the dominion of darkness and brought us a capital city that is modern, safe, clean, vibrant and a wonderful place to live.
This brings us back to the ancient proverb ‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.’
Here is a newsflash for these two dreamers, the City Hall is at its lowest ebb in its history, the coffers are empty, the debts to the contractors, utility companies, the GRA, the NIS and insurance are piling up, the City Hall building is on the verge of falling to the ground, the markets are filled with giant rats in addition to the collapse of one of its wharves, the city is filled with mosquitoes, the drains are all clogged, the roads are bad and the street lighting poor, multiple robberies are occurring unchallenged in the city every day whilst they have just concluded a massive anniversary celebrations.
Their old mantra, which is a complete falsehood, is that the revenue base of the Council is too small, that the Council does not have money, which means therefore that they could not mismanage what they don’t have and like Scrooge, they are very thrifty, stretching Council’s dollars to the limit to meet all of the Municipality’s financial commitments. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If the King and Queen really held the earnest view that the capital city was so penurious why did they travel around the world so many times first class in the last three years on joy rides? Why did they hire so many relatives including sons, daughters-in-law, daughters, nieces and nephews at super salaries? And why then did they give out so many enormous contracts to their relatives and friends?
Why did they bump the monthly payroll up to well over a hundred million dollars with the ‘Big Ones’ earning hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars each, per month?
No sane administrator would maintain a workforce of close to a thousand persons, whilst at the same time farming out to private contractors, most of the municipal services it provides, unless he or she had a pecuniary interest in the contracts that were being given out in violation of tender board procedures, whilst at the same time having a consanguinity with the many staffers that are padding the payroll.
Suddenly the almighty and powerful King is whining that it is the City Treasurer who is the one that is responsible for managing the City’s finances and not him. Oh really? What an epiphany?
Could someone remind the King and the Queen that the buck stops at them as Harry S. Truman would say? Maybe the COI will be able to find out why the City’s qualified and competent Accountant was unceremoniously removed from the Treasurer’s Department and tucked away in one of City’s Markets?
Regards.
Kwasi Sanderson
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