… as major irregularities are unearthed
NOT a single recommendation out of the 40 keys ones that came out of the ‘Burrowes Report’ has been implemented by the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC). But major irregularities have been unearthed instead, prompting authorities to vow that the three main players involved will definitely be sacked. Recently, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development asked Commissioner of Inquiry, Keith Burrowes and his team to provide an assessment of the state of the recommendations that came out of the Inquiry.
Burrowes was installed as Commissioner by former Local Government Minister, Kellawan Lall, and his task was to investigate the operations at City Hall. That report was completed and submitted to the relevant agencies over a year ago.
The assessment done recently was compiled into another report and a copy was presented to Town Clerk, Yonnette Pluck yesterday morning at the ministry. The council was asked to respond to the issues therein by June 20.
Burrowes shared some of the findings at a meeting yesterday at the ministry, on Fort Street, Kingston, in the presence of Ministers Ganga Persaud and Norman Whittaker, and Permanent Secretary, Collin Croal.
Raymond Gaskin, a member of the Implementation Committee, was also present. He is the man that Burrowes tasked with going into City Hall to have the assessment done. Burrowes was very confident that Gaskin was capable of executing the job and reiterated how sure he was that the information provided by him was purely factual.

Recommendations
Normally, in Guyana, Burrowes observed, inquiries such as this one end up on shelves and are never implemented. He and the team have however been following this one up, as a lot of time and resources had been invested in it.
Some members of the Implementation Committee have been so frustrated by some officers at the Council that they have refused to continue ‘wasting time’ there, Burrowes informed. In fact, the man who was tasked with assisting the Council with its financial management, at no cost, could not have obtained any information from the Treasury Department.
It was at this point that Gaskin was contacted to get the work done, Burrowes said. It was thereafter found that not one of the recommendations was implemented despite the Council being granted computers, software, and a number of other things to facilitate the process.
“I’ve concluded that it’s not incompetence. They just don’t want to implement them. But we are not going to sit idly by and have the work that was done by myself and colleagues go down the drain,” Burrowes remarked.
He reported how “shocked” he was to learn that of the four brand new trucks given to the municipality by the government; just one was working, while the others, plus three more, remain parked.
“We started to look into why. And it led us to believe that it was deliberate to have these trucks lined up, because you had to contract other people. And we are now seeing a link between some members of the Council and these other persons,” he explained.

Dummy Companies
Also discovered was a number of what Burrowes called “dummy companies.”
“Those companies, if we look at the invoices, did not have an address, or a telephone number. It was very unusual. We checked the directory to see if the company was ever in there. No! We checked if the company was registered. No!”
What was more worrisome was the fact that one cheque, prepared for $8M, was prepared to a Miss Mc Donald. “If a company is engaged, it is highly unusual that you prepare that cheque to an individual. The cheque has to be prepared to the company. But there were clear instructions from the Engineer (Gregory Erskine) to the Treasurer (Andrew Meredith) [to] prepare this cheque to Mc Donald,” Burrowes explained.
There are many other such companies, Burrowes said, all of which he has information about.
When staffing was considered, it was found that the Council now has a record of about 800 members, but Burrowes believes that had this really been the case, the city of Georgetown would have been a bit cleaner. “About 400 of those persons are phantoms,” he remarked, while acknowledging that this amount may be a bit exaggerated.
The amount for over time is unbelievable, he said. “I think it is the only place where the over time [is] rivalling the total cost of employment. I think it’s much more than 50 percent.”
The issuing of gas and diesel was also looked at, and it was discovered that the amounts given to officers are “unbelievably high. “It means therefore that the gas is not only going to the officials’ vehicles. It’s got to be going somewhere else.”
Burrowes also spoke about the issues surrounding scrap metal. “A number of the scrap material that the City Council got going out in containers is to the Good Crop Scrap Metal Business.”
The problem here is that a business by this name is not registered.
“We don’t know if Good Crop Scrap Metal is made up of members of the Council,” Burrowes related.
All of these findings, along with many more, could be proven, Burrowes said, as Gaskin has submitted a thick file with documents that he had access to and photocopied.
Burrowes is of the view that all of these issues would not have occurred if the Council had implemented the recommendations.
He said he has no doubt that all of what he mentioned is factual, but the Council has a right to be given an opportunity to respond. After they do, and when everything is confirmed, “there will be three people…we refer to them as the mafia, three persons who definitely will have to go,” he said.
Meanwhile, Minister Persaud thanked Burrowes and Gaskin for having the citizens of Georgetown at heart by working hard on their behalf. He said there is evidence to suggest that the Council can better manage its affairs.
The minister assured that affirmative and proactive action will be part of the ministry’s approach to dealing with the issues raised.
He noted, too, that the ministry shares some sort of blame for what is transpiring with the Council. “We are culpable too. We have allowed some situations to ride for too long. I want to apologise to Burrowes and his team for having done so much work; and when we should have acted in some instances, we delayed our action.”
Minister Whittaker offered that there are individuals and businesses that are indebted to the Council for rates, taxes, and interest to tune of almost $12B, but that the City Hall officers are not interested in reaching out to collect these debts.
“They are over-staffed. And I need to emphasise the issue of dummy wages and excessive over time, abuse of assets. “Mismanagement, incompetence, and disinterest are some of the words to describe what City Hall is offering the citizens of Georgetown.”