The Mayor and City Hall are once again in the news, but it would seem more often than not for the wrong reasons.
This time around it is the trip by the Mayor and several officers of the City Council to China which erupted in a very acrimonious debate at the most recent statutory meeting.
Based on the presentations by several Councillors, some of whom are from the same political party as the Mayor, there is a great deal of secrecy on the financing of the China trip, thus a doubt is hanging as to whether the proper financial procedures were followed as well as to the source of funding.
However, from what has been reported in the media, the Mayor has not said anything which has helped to resolve the controversy and instead he only “returned fire.”
One would have thought that the Mayor, who incidentally finds it fashionable these days to champion morality and spirituality through the chanting of his famous mantra “there is a need for moral and spiritual revival,” would have cleared the air on the matter by responding appropriately to the questions surrounding the issue.
But instead he chose to circumnavigate and allow the controversy to rage on and this is one of the principal reasons why City Hall hardly gets anything done. It seems as if this body has an affinity for controversies because apparently most of its energies are spent in this direction leaving little to deal with pertinent issues of garbage, littering, repairs to municipal markets, encumbering of pavements etc.
All that was required from the Mayor was to say clearly whether the trip to China was funded by the Chinese government or scarce funds from City Hall were used. Instead he chose to point to alleged financial improprieties of a former Mayor who is now a Councillor so as to deflect from the matter at hand. Whether the former Mayor was guilty of these offences is beside the point, and in any case why he chose only now to raise it rather than raising it at the time these offences were allegedly committed. The issue of contention is the funding of the trip to China and that should have been appropriately dealt with because taxpayers’ money may be involved here.
This is a most pertinent issue because if the trip was funded through the latter source then it is deplorable bearing in mind that the Mayor always cries out that the Council is short of money, and as such it is unable to provide the desired level of services and undertake projects to improve infrastructure and enhance the environment in the city.
The other aspect of the problem is financial accountability which some Councillors correctly probed because regardless of the source of funding abiding by the due financial procedures and accounting mechanisms are an imperative. Any other approach amounts to flouting of the prescribed financial regulations and this is a criminal act.
Incidentally City Hall has a history of financial improprieties which along with other issues prompted the establishment of the Burrowes Commission of Inquiry. And this inquiry revealed “a can of worms.”
During the course of the debate an opinion was expressed by one of the Mayor’s erstwhile colleagues that the Councillor who enquired from the Chinese Embassy whether the Chinese government funded the trip was a violation of diplomatic protocol and that he had no right to make such a move. Such a contention is absolute bunkum because of the fact that no information was forthcoming from City Hall and therefore the Councillor, being a representative of the people and in the interest of transparency, sought to clarify the source of funding. Or is it a case of where the Mayor is still above the law like when he was a Cabinet minister?
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the Mayor and City Hall officials, the short side of the issue is that the information being sought should have been provided because we hear so much these days about transparency and good governance from certain quarters. But this is a clear case of a lack of transparency and good governance.
It is ironic that the main player here is the one who lectures frequently on the need for a moral and spiritual revival in our society. What has been displayed by him on the matter of the trip to China definitely will not contribute to the process of a moral and spiritual revival. On the contrary it will contribute to moral and spiritual decay.