— Dr. Luncheon
GEORGETOWN’S deplorable situation, with its huge, perennial piles of garbage and ubiquitous mosquitoes, has evolved into a major health hazard confronting the citizens of Guyana’s capital and only city.
Consequently, the Guyana Government has decided to, once again, provide financial and material resources to help the city avert a crisis, and to organize other efforts to mitigate this unsatisfactory situation. Nevertheless, Government places blame for this veritable disaster squarely on the shoulders of inept officials of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).
Dr. Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, made this disclosure at a post-Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the President yesterday.
In hard-hitting remarks directed at the Council, Dr. Luncheon disclosed that Cabinet had declared that the M&CC had become a haven for irresponsible and unaccountable City officials, with glaring overt and offensive political intrigue.
He said: “Cabinet continues to decry the level of non-cooperation, and in many cases outright discourtesy, being experienced by ministry officials at the hands of even mere functionaries at the City Council.”
With respect to claims by the City Council that they were not allowed to pursue their own initiatives for fund-raising, Dr. Luncheon said, “I wish to reiterate one salient feature: this is a band of brigands. That they are a bunch of brigands is confirmed by the Auditor General and by committees that have been put in place. It has been established that these so-called municipal leaders have treated financial resources, rules and regulations with disrespect and wild abandon.”
Dr. Luncheon agreed that the City needed more money to address the multitude of ills that bedevil it.
However, he said there was an overwhelming perception, substantiated by reports and audits that M&CC’s funds are being squandered and not accounted for, and this raises the question of whether it makes sense to send good money after bad money.
He stressed that the ‘long and short’ of the matter of funding is that the M&CC has not demonstrated, over time, a resolve to be open, transparent, and accountable.
“Do you pour more money into the black hole that is the M&CC?  Could you conceivably feel that anyone would give them a penny more than they are getting? I wouldn’t give them a blind penny more.”
He said that Cabinet members have been subjected to numerous appeals for intervention by outraged residents of Georgetown; and he could pleasantly recall the days prior to local government elections, when there was an Interim Management Committee (IMC) and no such situation existed as currently obtains.
He said that Cabinet was responsive to the sentiments expressed by many that the solution to the problems of the City essentially involves getting this group of so-called municipal leaders out, and having in place some new arrangement that was accountable, that would use the funds appropriately, and that would efficiently  manage the City.
“We will work with stakeholders in capturing their sentiments and resolve for interventions that are mooted, such as an IMC, more financial inputs from stakeholders like those in the private sector, so we can have a programme that can be put in place in the time frame between now and the ultimate solution of local government elections,” Dr Luncheon said.
He said that new local government elections are a solution, but organizing those elections takes time, and Government feared that the population of Georgetown might succumb either to mosquitoes or to garbage health hazards, or to non-existent municipal functioning. “There are fears that the situation might become too dangerous for us to wait the inevitability of the local government elections before the end of 2012.”
He, however, reiterated Government’s commitment to ensuring that local government elections are held before the end of this year. He said that the general feeling, the overwhelming sentiment among numerous stakeholders, was that Georgetown would be better off seeing the backs of this group of so-called municipal leaders currently within the M&CC.
He said the interim interventions by Government would see the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Local Government providing financial and material assistance to mitigate the impact of the M&CC’s ineptitude.
He said the Ministry of Health has already drawn up plans to combat the hazards that are likely to occur in the face of a deteriorating environmental situation, and stressed that Cabinet had decided that there would be decisive intervention by Central Government in areas where these are warranted.