Dear Editor,

FROM talking to persons from all walks of life, there seems to be one significant concern shared by many, which is the alarm as to why central government seems not prepared to hold the Georgetown City Council to standards, values and ethics to which it holds itself.

It is confusing as to why the central government, which ensures in most cases that their ministries, public corporations and other government departments submit themselves to the rules and guidelines of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, just casually turns a blind eye to the Georgetown municipality which ignores all the rules of tendering and procurement, instead giving contracts to friends and relatives willy nilly, of procuring goods from single sources at overinflated prices, etc

Then we have the confutation where the central government has a clear green agenda for the country and the Minister of Communities, writing on his own behalf and on behalf of the Cabinet, to the mayor laying out the procedures that the M&CC must follow in respect of green spaces in Georgetown and alarmingly, the response was a telling-off even accusing him of meddling, whilst the Council continued in a brutal way the ecological destruction of the green spaces in the city, including the Bel Air Park Playground and the possibility of similar actions on the Farnum Playground. Shouldn’t persons at City Hall be brought to book?

Since the coalition government came to power in 2015, a policy has been established whereby public officers are required to take the leave due to them. It is felt that this would encourage the development of a good career system in which the subordinates are allowed to act.

At City Hall however, the town clerk and some of his cohorts are allowed to sit on years of stockpiled leave, refusing to proceed on it because they know that all hell can break loose if they go on leave and an investigation is launched into the corruption, maladministration, the nepotism, cronyism, the wasteful spending etc. How could the Council be allowed to veer so far from the government policy on public officers being required to take their leave.
Regards
Magagula Jackson