Dear Editor,

THE recent comment by the Town Clerk of Georgetown in the media that City Hall is not overstaffed but under resourced is preposterous, pathetic and a poor attempt at being clever. The definition of overstaffing is having more employees than are needed. Simply put, if the Vector Control staff are without spray cans and without insecticide for years now, then they are under resourced and overstaffed as they have no work to do, yet have to be paid for doing nothing. If the mechanics are not issued tools or provided with mechanical spares for eons then they can’t provide maintenance and repairs to municipal vehicles and are rendered impotent and therefore the workshop must be considered under resourced and overstaffed, unless they bring their own tools to work and procure the necessary spares out of their own pockets.

And such an extrapolation can be done in each section and department of the Council, are the nurses not having vaccines, carpenters and masons without tools and building materials to fix bridges etc. But an even more glaring refutation of the Town Clerk’s endeavor at a nifty rejoinder to the reporter’s question about overstaffing at the Council, was his failure to explain of how the willy-nilly contracting out of municipal services to their friends for activities such as weeding of parapets and drains whilst maintaining their own gang, cleaning of the cemetery, whilst maintaining their own cemetery workers, running of electrical wiring in the City Constabulary Training Center by their special contractor whilst maintaining their own Electricians does not lead to redundancy and overstaffing?

But finally, could the Town Clerk explain how it is possible for a city as poorly run as Georgetown to have so many departments, so many managers and so many support staff? There are cities much larger than Georgetown and municipalities that provide a much better quality and greater amount of municipal services to the citizenry in the Caribbean that don’t have three Assistant and Deputy Town Clerks, that don’t have seven Engineers, an entire public relations department with a ton of staffers, that don’t have their senior officials protected by bodyguards, and attended to by personal assistants, chauffeurs and a retinue of other attendants. But the question I had really wanted the journalist to ask the Town Clerk, was how many friends, relatives and church pals of senior municipal officials are currently weighing down Council’s payroll. Under resourcing is not the real problem at the Council, it is nepotism, cronyism and favouritism.
Regards
Sambu Jacobus