G/t Mayor sounds warning to city councillors
Georgetown Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green
Georgetown Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green

GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green has reiterated that city councillors cannot make decisions individually, but should first consult with the entire City Council before approval can be granted for a project.“Councillors are not allowed to make decisions on their own. I don’t want councillors going out there and if people ask them to build a bridge or something, they say ‘yes, go ahead and build it’. It has to be a Council decision,” she told the Guyana Chronicle recently.

In fact, she is hoping that this forms part of the code of conduct that will soon be established, once the Legal Affairs Committee meets to discuss it. The code is expected to come into effect by May, Mayor Chase-Green revealed.

“We have to have a proper dress code to come into Council and Council meetings. We have to know how to approach staff. It will be wide, because we have so many areas to deal with,” she observed.

She told this newspaper that when the recommendations are approved by Council, the code of conduct will immediately take effect. Just recently, the 30 new councillors who were elected following the March 18 elections had an opportunity to be trained through a Councillors’ Orientation Workshop and Retreat.

The project, a brainchild of Town Clerk Royston King, was born out of a need to improve governance and management systems at City Hall, so as to ensure better delivery of services to citizens.

It was also aimed to help councillors become familiar with their duties and responsibilities to the City of Georgetown.

The orientation session and retreat served as an opportune entrance point for commencing efforts to revamp the Council’s operations, and revitalize local democracy after a long two-decade breakdown.

Councillors were given a preview of the municipality’s ongoing projects and those that are still in the pipeline, and were enlightened on the roles they would likely play to ensure successful execution of those projects.

Among further objectives of the workshop were to create a space where new councillors and administrative Council staff could engage and share ideas for improving Council’s functioning, and to examine ways of incorporating lessons learnt from the previous Council. Adopting international best practices in improving project execution and project outcomes was also included.

The Ministry of Communities is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the functioning of local government organs, and acts as a direct link to central government. This ministry oversees the activities of all the regional democratic councils, municipalities, and neighbourhood democratic councils.

 

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