THE Georgetown City Council is in the news again on the vendors’ issue. This time, Mayor Patricia Chase-Green is calling on the Markets’ Public Health Committee to be more proactive in formulating a policy that would cater for relocation of vendors from the Parliament View Mall to a more suitable location.In efforts at ensuring local government is given a chance to work — after more than six election cycles of denying citizens the right to elect their leaders — all eyes will be focused on how the country’s oldest and most populated town is managed by the city fathers and mothers. It is very important for this nation’s growth and development that the most basic form of democracy is given a chance to work, and elected representatives partner with the citizens in so doing. Neither can function properly and succeed without the other. There exists a symbiotic relationship, and such can thrive only in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

When grassroots democracy fails, it carries dire consequences for democracy at other tiers of government (i.e. national and regional). When all tiers of government fail, people lose faith in the system and no longer consider themselves valued and vital to the nation. And where despondency marks perception of governance, those who do not become disengaged, apathetic, or feel the migration push, often use situations such as these to abuse the State’s resources. These are characteristics that exemplify a doomed nation, and this is something Guyanese should avoid at all cost.

Whereas the mayor is applauded for holding the council and its various committees accountable for ensuring vendors occupying Parliament View find a permanent location, it is unfortunate that before the decision was taken to first relocate them, such was not a pre-eminent consideration. It cannot be over-emphasised that every level-headed citizen would want to see improvement and orderliness in the city, including within the vending community. What this issue is clearly showing is that those on the Council who supported moving the vendors from Stabroek Market failed to give the issue proper thought before making the decision. The tendency to plan in the dark as a feature of management has to be abandoned.

Planning — short, medium and long term — requires taking systematic and scientific approaches to getting things done. Though from the mayor’s point of view vending at Stabroek Market is a “no no,” and this position has been accompanied by an assurance that the council is “not in any way attempting to take bread from anyone”, council has to prove by its actions that such concern is genuine.

An objective that focuses on ensuring the economic livelihood of persons is secured, had it started from said position, would have recognised that the relocation to Parliament View would achieve the exact opposite. As though in hindsight, the Council sought to compensate for the evident economic dislocation of this group of vendors through a weekly flea market on Regent Street, but this fell through, and is another manifestation of poor planning. What continues to be missing in the planning endeavours at the human component level is the involvement of the group whose economic welfare is being directly impacted by the decisions coming out of City Hall. In that the affected vending group also comprises persons who are single parents and vending is the only source of income for them, a compassionate approach to governance and management would not overlook these factors.

The mayor has assured city dwellers, users, and the country at large that the council is “trying to organise the city in a way that will make it (comparable to) modern cities and that would allow it to stand shoulder to shoulder with the great cities of the world.” This goal will find support of the majority of Guyanese, if not all.

Similarly, it is being advised that modern cities are built through proper planning and involvement of stakeholders. A modern city would never be achieved using condemned and outdated approaches to planning and management. City Hall continues to have the support of the citizens in doing the right thing.