Dear Editor,The Georgetown Municipality is in need of a straightforward financial audit, but rather a complete forensic audit of all its departments.
Of course in the Finance Department, there needs to be an examination of the recent cleaning and other contracts that were given to Councillors and friends, to determine the criteria used for awarding them and to understand how one Councillor could have been recently paid for the rental of his truck to his very Council years ago whilst another collected millions of dollars allegedly for advertisements placed by the Council on his television station which incidentally no one looks at, two clear cases of cronyism.
Apart from its financial management systems which are and have been in a mess for a long time, there is need for an audit to be done to its human resource department to highlight and root out the nepotism that is endemic there, where there an infinite number of persons employed who are relatives and friends of Councillors and senior officers, who have been employed not because of their competency or qualifications but because of their family member status. They should also examine the promotions and increments that have been given quite improperly, not based on merit but rather comradeship.
The City Engineer’s Department needs to have a management audit undertaken to determine who have allowed all the illegal structures to go up in the city, to ascertain how building inspectors whose responsibility it is to ensure that persons are erecting buildings according to approved plans, could be allowed to draw these very plans whilst ignoring blatant violations. Over at the Markets there needs to be an examination of the books to uncover who the real stall holders are and to see whether all the fees collected particularly from itinerant vendors go where they belong. The City Council needs to be audited from top to bottom.
Sincerely
Debra Gibson