Lackadaisical behaviour at City Hall preposterous

Feb 27, 2019 Letters

Dear Editor,

A letter appearing in the ‘Letters Column’ of the newspapers recently, purportedly written by the Public Relations Officer of the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown regarding the forfeiture of a US grant that was made available to repair the long defunct Stabroek Market Clock, but which has gone unspent for more than three years now, only accentuates further the high degree of incompetence and venality of the administration of the City Council.
I can recall the former Mayor boasting that with the involvement of her Engineers that the clock would have been rehabilitated and changed since 2016 from its previous mechanical system to a new electronic system that would be powered via solar energy, that would have coincided with ‘greening’ of the country. So why has this not happened?
Of course, all of these grand ideas were just more idle pipe dreams with no concrete steps or diligent action being taken to fructify her reverie into reality. I think they were just too busy flying around the world on useless junkets, on sharing out inflated contracts to Tom, Dick and Harrylall without adherence to tender procedures and hiring friends and family to cushy jobs at the Council featherbedding all the while, to rehabilitate the clock.
How is it that the Council is able to give out contracts overnight to clean the cemetery? And how is it able to design the front of the Stabroek Market into a fancy “civic square” and the back where the wharf collapsed into a riverside esplanade and cannot simply rehabilitate a clock which was being fully funded? Is this not simply preposterous?
Is the City Council capable of doing anything? Look at the Kitty Market rehabilitation? Look at the decrepit Abattoir building, the ruinous City Hall, which they occupy, look at the City Police Training School which has suffered from considerable theft and serious vandalism, look at the Incinerator Compound with heaps of garbage all around and the unfinished Solid Waste building. Although hundreds of millions are being spent, everything is being left half done. Is this not a clear indication of the level of competency and trustworthiness of the Georgetown Municipality?
If the silly excuse that is being given that before the clock could be repaired that the entire area that houses the clock needs to be rehabilitated, then why don’t they rehabilitate the clocks of the Kitty, Bourda or La Penitence Markets instead of returning the grant? It seems that the only real bankruptcy the Council is suffering from is a ‘Bankruptcy of Ideas’.
The legacy of the ‘Fantastic Four’ continues to be felt at City Hall.

Sincerely,
Amber Valentine

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