OVER the past three years, the average annual revenue inflow for the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has been in excess of $3B, Minister within the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Norman Whittaker disclosed yesterday.

But regrettably, close to 60 percent of this amount has been spent in the area of employment cost, although upon observation in the city streets, for instance, there is no-one cleaning the drains and the clogged waterways.
Minister Whittaker made these observations while addressing a People’s Progressive Party (PPP) press briefing at Freedom House in Georgetown yesterday. Present also were Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee and Executive Secretary, Zulficar Mustapha.
In addition to collecting revenue, Whittaker observed, various sector ministries have been playing their part in assisting the city council. Just recently, he said, his ministry assisted in effecting repairs to the municipality’s compactor trucks.
The Home Affairs Minister said the PPP is particularly concerned about the ongoing state of Georgetown where it has now become commonplace to see piles of garbage at almost every street corner, in drains and other waterways.
He said the party is “extremely disappointed” at the approach adopted by Mayor Hamilton Green. “When he is not busy travelling the world on visits not related to our capital city, we see him writing newspaper columns on every other topic except addressing the concerns of our citizens who are affected daily by this sordid situation,” the minister remarked.
He said had the government not been consistently investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the city each year, one could only imagine what its state would be like.

GHOST WORKERS?
“And Green has the audacity to accuse government of not assisting the M&CC. They have a huge wage bill, yet we hardly see workers doing anything around the city. Are they ghost workers on the payroll?”
Rohee recalled that the government not too long ago assisted the municipality in clearing the Le Repentir Cemetery, but because the municipality failed to conduct maintenance works, the cemetery is back to square one.
He said it is only because of Town Clerk, Carol Sooba that many irregularities have been exposed. For instance, Rohee said Sooba has been pressured to engage in illegal activity by Green to write off the debt from a business owned by his wife. “This is the same individual who loves to lecture us on the subject of morality,” said the minister.
Meanwhile, Nandlall offered that government is still being forced to be the scapegoat for the city’s negligence and failure to perform. He said the city council has the primary responsibility of keeping Georgetown clean and they must not be allowed to abdicate their responsibility.