GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green on Monday stopped Town Clerk Royston King from inviting the city engineer to give a brief of the current state of the City Hall building, saying she did not want to drive fear into city councillors.

King reported that based on information he received from City Engineer Colvern Venture, the building will soon be unable to be used for any purpose. Just last week, a portion of it on the northern side fell off.

“Are we safe as it is? How sure are we that this part of the building (Council Chambers) will not collapse before the end of this afternoon?” asked Councillor Monica Thomas.
“It’s in a ruinous state and we need to urgently decide on the way forward,” King told the fortnightly statutory meeting.

Councillor Welton Clarke questioned just what happened to donated funds that were to be used for the repairs. “I can recall foreigners had injected money for repairs, but it seems that was gone with the waves at 6 pm,” he said.

The mayor agreed that the building is deteriorating each day and suggested that City Hall launch a restoration fund, while meeting with the public, private sector, the Guyana National Trust, and everyone involved, on the way forward regarding the repairs.

“It’s in an unsightly state, especially from north to south. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone while they are sitting here. We need to at least make a start and do something; we can’t hand it over to another council like this,” Chase-Green said.

She noted that the Council is not in a position to rent any space, which would cost nothing less than $1M per month. “The money to rent can be used to do the repairs. I would not like for someone to come pay taxes and a piece of metal or something falls on them,” she said.

She recalled that consultations were done by various agencies and one recommendation was not to allow heavy-duty vehicles to traverse Avenue of the Republic. “But I’m not sure how we can address this.”