WITH a peaking $2.4B proposed for the 2015 budget to facilitate the restoration and rehabilitation of the Garden City, Georgetown Mayor, Hamilton Green, was on Friday last pleased to announce that the 2015 budget had been prepared, approved and given a no-objection stamp by the Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan.Beginning in the second quarter of the fiscal year, the budgetary cycle will see the Town Clerk issuing a circular to the Council as well as to all departments.

Since the local government system sees councillors being drawn from various constituencies, those councillors are expected to consult with constituencies on matters of urgency. Departmental budgets are created at the same time, after which a draft budget is then submitted to the Finance Committee by the Municipal Treasurer.

The Finance Committee is then expected to scrutinise that budget based on information gathered from constituents. This is where both the council aspect and the administrative aspect are then combined, after which the first public meeting is held.

Following the public meeting, the draft budget is then taken back to the Finance Committee for consideration by both members of the Council, headed by Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green, and the City Administration, headed by the Town Clerk.

The last two steps involve an approval of the budget, which is then subjected to assent by the Finance Committee Chairman and the Municipal Treasurer before approval by the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development is sought.

However, an eventful 2014 forced a late submission of the Georgetown City Council’s budget, since Finance Chairman, Councillor Junior Garrett, had a no-confidence motion passed against him last year by the Council at an ‘unlawful’ statutory meeting which was held in the compound of City Hall, after the Councillors were refused entry to the Chambers by then acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba.
Desperate to complete a draft budget, the City Treasurer and other staff came to the rescue of City Hall, and were able to produce their budget.

On Friday last, in the Chambers of City Hall, Mayor Green eagerly announced to the media at a press conference that the final stage of the approval aspect of the budget, the Minister’s approval, had been accomplished.

However, the next step involves a public reading of the budget, which is expected to be done during this or the following week.

An official attached to the Mayor and City Council had disclosed that this would have been done earlier, but the holding of General Elections earlier in the year had forced a delay in the public approval and public reading of the budget. He further explained that while $23M of the budget’s total is subsidized by central government annually, the remainder is facilitated by revenues generated by the council.

But what the Council will be working towards, the official said, is weeding out the delinquent taxpayers who have either been evading taxes or have not been paying the amount they are mandated to pay.

As it relates to the content of the budget, the four areas which absorb the bulk of the money are: the Engineer’s Department, the Solid Waste Department, the City Markets, and the Public Health Department.

While the Solid Waste Department will continue to lobby for trucks and equipment needed to rid the city of garbage, the Engineer’s Department will continue its rehabilitation projects on kokers and other engineering mechanisms across Georgetown.

The Mayor also detailed his plans for the city, hinting at a major overhaul of Georgetown, with specific emphasis to be placed on large trucks, vagrants, city businesses and delinquent vendors.

Green highlighted that bush trucks are able to park in residential areas and contribute significantly to traffic congestion and deterioration of roads and parapets. In this regard, he revealed, Council will be exploring the option of restricting the time when certain type of motor vehicles can traverse the city.

“We are now giving notice to those owners and operators of bush trucks that they are to remove them post-haste,” Mayor Green declared.

He also disclosed that emphasis would be placed on formalization of street vendors, and stringent fees will be imposed for breaches on the part of vendors, businesses and citizens.

Market too, he said, will be examined, and the options of having rehabilitated historical structures or modern designs for the markets will be decided upon through a consultative effort with relevant stakeholders.

City Hall will also be playing an integral role in the re-examining of zoning laws, which seems to have been completely ignored by corporate Guyana over the last few decades. Green assured the media that City Hall will ensure to work closely with the relevant authorities, including the Ministries of Communities and of Public Infrastructure, to ensure that zoning laws are adhered to and compliance remains of paramount importance.

By Ravin Singh