Green charges Ministers with failing to engage him
GEORGETOWN Mayor Hamilton Green has charged ministers in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Ganga Persaud and Norman Whittaker, with not acting in line with propriety and protocol, by failing to engage him over serious municipal issues that surfaced recently in the ‘Burrowes Report.’ Green, at a press conference he convened in his City Hall office, said it was prompted by a report that was presented to the Council last Thursday morning, to which the municipality has been asked to respond by June 20.
Recently, the ministry asked Commissioner of Inquiry into City Hall operations, Mr. Keith Burrowes, and his team to provide an assessment of the implementation state of the recommendations that came out of their investigation.
Burrowes was, previously, appointed to head the Commission by former Local Government Minister Kellawan Lall and his task was to investigate the operations of City Hall. The findings were compiled and submitted to the relevant agencies more than over a year ago.
But the recent assessing was documented and a copy of the compilation was handed to Town Clerk Yonnette Pluck Thursday morning, at the ministry, just before Burrowes briefed the media on some of what he found subsequently.

Inappropriate behaviour
At his press conference yesterday, Green said he has had cause to write President Donald Ramotar, in the past, on what he called the “inappropriate behaviour” of the Local Government Ministers.
Lately, he said the ministers have chosen to engage the very three officers (the Town Clerk, City Treasurer Andrew Meredith and City Engineer Gregory Erskine) that are at the base of the Council’s concerns.
In normal circumstances, Green said the ministers should have sent him a copy of the assessment but he feels that a very “myopic” approach has been taken with regard to the documentation.
The Mayor said he has already written to the Auditor General, seeking to have a thorough forensic audit conducted on the related sections of the municipality.
“We’re not prepared to condone or contribute to any form of impropriety, lawlessness or corruption, particularly in the extant circumstances where corruption at the highest level seems to be the order of the day,” Green declared.
He repeated his calls for local government reforms to be pursued so that elections could be held and accused the government of not being truly interested in holding them.
Green said, prior to this estimation, he, like the ministers, was aware that none of what was recommended in the Burrowes advisory was being implemented, but claimed the Council did not have the capacity to discipline the responsible officers.
Green remarked, however, that the Council had accepted the advice in its entirety.

Remained parked
Meanwhile, last Thursday, Burrowes revealed how “shocked” he was to learn that, of the four brand new trucks given to the municipality by government, only one was working while the others, plus three more, remained parked.
“We started to look into why. And it led up to believing that it was deliberate to have these trucks lined up because then 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.
Burrowes said a number of “dummy companies” were   also discovered. “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 companies were ever in there. No! We checked if the companies were  registered. No!”
He said, what was more worrisome, is the fact that one cheque, for $8M, was prepared for 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 observed.
He said there are many other of such companies, about all of which he has information.
Burrowes said, when staffing was considered, it was revealed that the Council now has a record of about 800 employees but he believes that, had this really been the case, the City would have been a bit cleaner.
“About 400 of those persons are phantoms,” he pronounced, while acknowledging that the number may be a bit exaggerated.
Burrowes said the pay for overtime is unbelievable and he continued:“I think it is the only place where the overtime [is] rivalling the total cost of employment. I think it’s much more than 50 percent.”

Unbelievably high
He said the issuing of gasolene and dieselene was also looked at and it was discerned that the amounts being given to the 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, pointing out that much of the material that is going out from the City Council is to Good Crop Scrap Metal Business.
He said:”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.”
A member of the Implementation Committee, Mr. Ramon Gaskin was tasked by Burrowes to go into City Hall to assess the situation, as the latter said he was very confident that the former was capable of executing the job and reiterated how sure he was that the information provided by him was purely factual.