High Court quashes parking meter by-laws

HIGH Court Judge Naresh Harnanan on Friday took a decision that essentially renders the parking meter by-laws null and void, thus putting a pause on the controversial project for which re-negotiations was only recently completed.

The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) was this week expected to announce to the public new rates that Smart City Solutions (SCS) had agreed to charge for parking in the city. SCS is the overseas company that the City Council granted a concession to install parking meters in Georgetown. In fact, Chairman of the re-negotiating committee, Councillor Akeem Peter had only days ago told the Guyana Chronicle that SCS has agreed to now charge for time instead of for space, and that he did not want to get into details as top city officials were about to release new information to the public.

Last February, subsequent to a legal challenge of the by-laws by New Building Society (NBS), Justice Brassington Reynolds ordered that “an order or rule nisi certiorari be issued directed to Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan to show cause why a writ of certiorari should not be issued to quash his approval and/or decision to approve the Parking Meter By-Laws made under the Municipal and District Councils Act, Chapter 28:01 made on or about the 23rd day of January, 2017 in that the said approval or decision to approve was of no legal effect and was made unlawfully and in breach of statute.”

Member of the Movement against Parking Meters (MAPM) Don Singh told Guyana Chronicle on Friday that the movement is overjoyed and happy and feels vindicated. He said this is the reason the MAPM had been petitioning the M&CC to wait on the outcome of the court matter before continuing to advance the project. M&CC had however voted to begin a fresh process of negotiations with SCS. Last September, 13 of 25 city councillors voted in favour of setting up a new committee, consisting of two members of the public, to re-negotiate with SCS.

The contract that M&CC had entered into with SCS came under heavy criticism from some city councillors who called for a complete revocation of it, while some others had suggested waiting on the outcome of the court before proceeding. Ultimately, they reasoned, the M&CC will have to go with the decision of the court regardless of what the Council had then decided. The majority nevertheless voted in favour of starting to re-negotiate.

On that occasion, the MAPM member had told this publication that the M&CC in effect voted to go ahead with re-negotiating an illegal contract. “Now I don’t know how that works. We at MAPM are one hundred per cent sure that the court case will justify our position that monopoly laws were broken, procurement laws were broken and the general contract is illegal. So they will be faced with further problems down the road by taking this action.”
Other MAPM member, Luana Falconer commented that it was shocking to see that it did not matter to 13 councillors that the contract with SCS is illegal. “Where in the world is negotiating an illegal contract ok? These people are not thinking. This is madness. Everything about the whole process was wrong,” she said.

Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikarran had said that the project lacked transparency from the beginning, was not open to public scrutiny and should have been shelved immediately. “In May 2016, the Council was informed that the contract was signed for the implementation of parking meters. To my knowledge, at no time do I recall ever discussing, much less voting, on a proposal to implement this. I didn’t even see a contract until much later on.”
Alliance For Change (AFC) Councillor, Sherod Duncan, along with People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Councillors, Bishram Kuppen and Khame Sharma also called for the complete revocation of the contract.

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