THE services of four senior officers of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC), who were, allegedly, at the helm of a massive fraud in the municipality, have been dismissed by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Mayor Hamilton Green announced Wednesday.

Three of them, Town Clerk Yonnette Pluck, City Engineer Gregory Erskine and City Treasurer Andrew Meredith have, so far, been informed that their services were terminated as of December 31 last.
The fourth officer, Solid Waste Management Director Hubert Urlin has not yet been officially advised, Minister within the Ministry, Norman Whittaker told the Guyana Chronicle, in an invited comment.
Meanwhile, at the press conference in the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, Green said the termination was based on the Auditor General’s (AG’s) Report that was recently concluded and handed over to the ministry.
Public Relations Officer Royston King, Councillors Patricia Chase-Green, Anthony Boyce and Ian Andrews, were also present at the media occasion.
The Mayor said the Ministry decision brings “relief and closure” of what seemed to be a cycle of misdeeds, misdemeanours and apparent corruption.
In fact, he was “delighted” to hear the news, he said.
Green said he hopes that similar actions will be taken in other agencies such as the National Communications Network (NCN) and with officers dealing with important contracts.
According to Whittaker, the evidence provided against the fired officers in the AG’s report has revealed several acts of transgressions of policies, rules and regulations and negligence in the execution of duties.
Last July 23, when the officers were asked to proceed on leave, Deputy Town Clerk, Sharon Harry-Munroe and Personnel Officer Paulette Braithwaite were also handed letters to the effect. But, according to Whittaker, those individuals will be reinstated to their positions once they are not found to have committed offences that warrant dismissal.

CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS
With regard to criminal proceedings, the minister said the police will have to make that decision, although he pointed out that incompetence, inefficiency and the like, may not be enough to warrant such actions.
Currently, Ms. Carol Sooba is performing the duties of Town Clerk; Mr. Lloyd Alleyne as City Engineer and Mr. Ron Mc Calmon, City Treasurer.
In 2009, the City Council was found not to be delivering on its services and Government tasked Mr. Keith Burrowes with investigating the goings-on at the municipality.
He and his team, subsequently, made 40 recommendations that, if implemented, could have solved many of the issues at City Hall. However, from 2009 to 2012, the council still was not delivering.
“In fact, things got worse with revenue collection and the delivery of services,” Whittaker observed at a press conference a few days ago.
Consequently, in 2012, with the approval of Cabinet and the City Council, Mr. Raymon Gaskin, a management consultant, was identified to head the Burrowes Implementation Committee.
The ‘Gaskin’s Report’ found that not one of the 40 key steps recommended by Burrowes was implemented but, instead, pointed to deficiencies.
On the basis of that compilation and, again with Cabinet’s concurrence, the ministry decided to forward the compendium to the police and the AG and the officers accused of culpability were sent on leave to facilitate the probe.

BEING PERUSED
The outcome was sent to the minister recently and Whittaker said it was being perused by the relevant authorities.
He said the audit found many of the same officers guilty of reckless offences; failing to keep proper records and care for the Council’s assets.
A few months ago, Burrowes had said: “I’ve concluded that it’s not incompetence. They just don’t want to implement them (his recommendations)”.
He declared 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, remained parked.
“We started to look into why. And it led us to believe that it was deliberate, 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,” Burrowes explained.
He said, when staffing was considered, it was found that the Council now has a record of about 800 members, but he 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 number may be a bit exaggerated.