Dear Editor,
IT was quite agonising and indeed simply appalling to sit in the Chambers of the City Hall in Georgetown recently and witness the Mayor and Councillors engage in an exercise that not only defied logic and the will of the vast majority of the citizenry, but also in one that showed a complete lack of regard and thorough disrespect for the rule of law and the judicial system of Guyana.

It is simply beyond any rational person’s comprehension, how in the midst of a matter engaging the courts of Guyana, and I speak of the burdensome and unlawful parking meter system that was foisted on businesses, residents and visitors to Georgetown by City Hall, they could be pontificating on the way forward for that very unwise and illegal initiative.

It should come as no surprise that the ‘Fantastic Four’ and their cronies voted in favour of the council continuing with the illegal parking meter system — and more disgracefully — continuing with the same company, Smart City Solutions, as they clearly has a vested interest in this purported company continuing with this infamous project.

One should not forget that it is they who got us into this mess in the first place, with the signing the contract, which the town clerk had no authority to so do, flying off to Central America to “pal up” with representatives of the company, and it was they who hid the contract from the rest of the councillors and the citizens at large, and who boasted that Smart City Solutions was here to stay.

But in addition to the show of indifference to and defilement of the court system of Guyana by some councillors, it was the public display of pomposity, contempt and impertinence to the councillors and the citizenry by the town clerk that was most egregious. Clearly, this individual believes that he is a legal luminary even though he has no legal qualifications, believes that he is the smartest person in the room, even though Georgetown must be the most bankrupt and worst managed city in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Unless the town clerk can produce the agenda and minutes of a Council meeting he claimed that was purportedly presided over by then Mayor Hamilton Green and which decided that a parking meter agreement should be entered into with Smart City Solutions, or in the absence of that, unless the town clerk can show on what legal authority he exceeded the limit of GYD$250,000 that he on his own can enter into as a contract on behalf of the Council, then that contract is null and void. But more importantly, he should be severely disciplined and possibly prosecuted.

Regards
Modi Sankar