THE Georgetown Municipality is, currently, being run by a new group of officers, following a decision by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development to send six seniors, linked to massive fraud, on leave. The latter sextet, comprising Town Clerk, Yonnette Pluck, City Engineer, Gregory Erskine, City Treasurer, Andrew Meredith, Deputy Town Clerk, Sharon Harry-Munroe, Solid Waste Director, Hubert Urlin and Personnel Officer, Paulette Braithwaite, were handed letters to the effect last Monday.
Minister within the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Mr. Norman Whittaker said that was decided by Cabinet after consideration of a recommendation from the Council to have three officers sent on leave.
In an invited comment, he told the Guyana Chronicle he could not understand why the Council suggested that only Pluck, Erskine and Meredith be sent off, since the ‘Raymon Gaskin Report’ identified deficiencies in other offices.
Whittaker said it is expected that a letter containing information on the replacements, identified by the Council on Monday, would be forwarded to the ministry for approval.
At that Council meeting, City Councillors spent more than two hours bickering over who should carry out the duties of the six seniors ordered off the job by the ministry to facilitate a proper investigation into the financial irregularities that were unearthed recently.
Seventeen councillors agreed with Deputy Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green when she suggested that Public Relations Officer (PRO) Royston King act as Town Clerk; Debra Lewis as PRO; Lloyd Alleyne as City Engineer; Ron Mc Calmon as City Treasurer; Michelle Smith as Personnel Officer and Parbhudin Bissoondyal as Head of Solid Waste Management.
Chase-Green had also proposed that no replacement be sought for Harry-Munroe, at this stage.

EFFECTIVE CONSULTATION
Meanwhile, Mayor Hamilton Green said, Monday that the ministry sending the six off did not allow for effective consultation. He said the proposition by Chairman of the Implementation Committee, Mr. Keith Burrowes was that a small team from within be set up to work out the modalities of the Council.
Councillor Oscar Clarke declared that the Council is operating in the dark because it is unaware of what the police have found, so far, in their investigations and that while the Council recommended that only three officers go on leave, six were ordered to do so.
He said he was unaware of the arrangements in place for the duties to be handed over to others and called for the Council to be provided a copy of the police report, because the information in it could be useful.
Meantime, the Local Government Ministry has handed over all the relevant documents to the police for them to continue their probe into the issues.
Whittaker said the officers fingered have been involved in “criminal acts” and hence the involvement of the police.
City Hall had previously been requested to provide a written response to major irregularities in the municipality but Whittaker said all Green sought to do was “politicise the acts of dishonesty” that were discovered and shift around the blame.
Burrowes, who was Commissioner of the Inquiry to investigate the operations at City Hall, briefed members of the media recently and said not a single one of the 40 key recommendations in his report has been implemented by the Council.