City Hall is indeed a building of unique architectural design and is often

described as “the most picturesque structure” and “the most handsome building in Georgetown”, as well as “one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the Caribbean.” In 1995, the Government of Guyana proposed Georgetown City Hall as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building currently occupies the status of “tentative listing”.
The building was designed by architect Reverend Ignatius Scholes in 1887, and was completed in June 1889.
At 2pm on 23 December 1887, Governor Henry Turner Irving laid the foundation stone for the City Hall. The foundation stone was laid at the north-east corner of the main building, along with a glass jar containing original documents relating to the building, copies of the leading newspapers of British Guiana at that time.
City Hall was officially opened at 3pm in the afternoon on 1 July 1889 by Governor-Viscount Gormanston. The Archbishop of British Guiana, William Piercy Austin, then blessed the structure.
So City Hall, which is two centuries old is truly one of our prized historic buildings and therefore every effort must be made to preserve it, as in recent years it has expectedly started to seriously deteriorate, thus needing emergency works.
The government recognising the urgency of the situation allocated $20M for the execution of emergency works and immediately released $5M in a first tranche. However, the customary bungling at the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has resulted in only $3M of the $5M being spent.
However, an article in another section of the media sought to cast blame in the delay of the spending of the money on Chairman of the Implementation Committee of the M&CC, Mr. Keith Burrowes.
Seeking to set the record straight, Mr. Burrowes, in a recent interview, stated categorically that he is not holding up the spending, as stated in the article.
He recalled that, about one year ago, the Ministry of Local Government had approved an allocation of $20M for renovation and emergency works at City Hall, and had asked him to overlook the spending of this money.
He, however, said that when this appointment was made, the Council had already spent over $3M of the first disbursement of $5M. Then the project was subsequently delayed because of a rift between the now dismissed Engineer Mr. Erskine and the Social Welfare Committee of the City Council.
Mr. Burrowes stated that, during his first meeting with the council, he had indicated that the Council should consider doing a comprehensive Engineer’s Estimate, reflecting the total amount needed to renovate City Hall. This position was against the haphazard arrangement wherein the Engineer’s Department had apparently determined how the money would have been spent only after the tranches would have been released. He said that this information would enable the council in its resource mobilisation efforts. Further, they would be able to address the more critical works, if this kind of information is available.
It is unfortunate that such an important and urgent matter is encountering such bureaucratic delays and one gets the impression that M&CC is not really committed to ensuring that the required emergency works are executed in a timely manner.
There is always a big hue and cry from the M&CC that it is cash-strapped, but here is a clear case of where government moved expeditiously to provide funding, but still there is bungling.
However, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development should take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that the emergency works are completed in the shortest possible time, because anymore delays may result in a higher cost of the emergency works.