Dear Editor,
Like a medieval queen, Her Worship the Mayor has issued her decree from up high in the form of a letter in Monday’s Kaieteur News. “Parking Meters will stay”
Madam Mayor, get with the programme. The five hundred plus people you saw protesting on Friday don’t care about who belongs to the PPP or to APNU. We are way past that old time nonsense. Regardless of our political beliefs we share the same views about corruption, accountability of elected officials and transparency.

Read our collective lips “We don’t care about party politics when it comes to the meters“.
Stop worrying about who is “high class” “middle class” or “low class” and start worrying about what our Ministry of Finance said about your meter project in their review report: “The findings of the review underpin a call for a reconsideration of the feasibility and hence the viability of the project( s) of the MCCCG to provide quality service to the citizens and businesses of Georgetown and its environs and to the Nation as a whole.” “Overall the team has concluded that subject to legal implications, there are grounds for the contract to be withdrawn”

“Re-tender (assuming that it was done before and includes provision for funding by the tenderers) for bidding in the six zones with Georgetown, separately, so as to allow for greater competition.”
This same report finds that Smart City Solutions, in their dealings with the Mayor, adopted what they term as a “rogue approach to exploit the “apparent ignorance “of M&CC [CG]’s business and financial analyses competencies.”

Madam, when you see the empty parking spaces on your streets you are seeing what the public truly thinks about your project. Those empty spaces are not the doing of any movement against parking meters. These are the spontaneous reaction of a citizenry who cannot afford your draconian fees , who don’t like to be bullied and who sense that something is amiss with your dealings with Smart City Solutions.

I note that you refer to the “new era of council democracy “ . Given the heavy handed manner in which you are dealing with the response to your meter programme , your use of this phrase is indeed ironic.

Regards
Marcel Gaskin