-–President Granger

CENTRAL government will not micro-manage the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) or any other municipality, President David Granger has said as he addressed the controversial parking meter project.Late last month, Cabinet took a decision to review the ‘controversial’ contract which the city administration has kept under lock and key for fear of the idea being copied. The Government had warned that if there was any illegality surrounding the contract, the city’s administration would be sanctioned.
However, from all indications, City Mayor Patricia Chase-Green has been given the green light to proceed with the project.

“I have not been advised that it is being embarked on in any fraudulent or irregular manner,” President Granger said while speaking on the state-sponsored Public Interest Show.

He said the investigation was launched to determine whether there was any impropriety.
“Once there is no impropriety, there is no reason for Central Government to obstruct the municipal administration from proceeding,” President Granger explained.
He, however, made it clear that the APNU+AFC Administration is not in the business of micromanagement.

“The municipality operates under its own regulations, it is not a department of Central Government, and it is not for Central Government to micro manage the municipality and decide on every container tax (and) every parking meter. So I don’t believe that any attempt is being made to prevent the parking meter programme from going ahead,” he stated.

City Council officially announced in May that it was giving the ‘parking meter contract’ to a company called National Parking Systems, although it had given overseas-based Guyanese Saratu Phillips an exclusive contract back in 2007.

Several councilors, including Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan, have voiced concerns over the lack of consultation on the project.
The council was split into factions when news emerged that Town Clerk Royston King had accompanied the Mayor and councillors Junior Garrett and Oscar Clarke to Mexico City, Mexico, and then to Panama, where they met with officials from those countries unbeknownst to the rest of Georgetown’s elected representatives.

Following that trip, the city administration in June rolled out a model of the proposed parking meter for display in City Hall’s compound, with the aim of implementing the metering project by September 1, 2012.