A COUNCILLOR is alleging that the Georgetown City Council has a debt in excess of $3B, partially due to contracts signed off by embattled Town Clerk Royston King without the support of the full council, but Chairman of the City’s Finance Committee Oscar Clarke said the allegations are baseless.

On Thursday, Clarke told the Guyana Chronicle that the Council has a debt of less than $2B, the greater part of which is owed to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL); but records provided by an A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Chance (APNU+AFC) Councillor, who is a long-standing member of the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R), who requested anonymity, revealed that the Georgetown Mayor and City Council at the end of December 31, 2017, had a liability of $2.957B.

For critical services provided by GPL, Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) and Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT), City Hall owes in excess of $2.064B. Additionally, as of December 31, 2017, City Hall had an outstanding sum of $28.4M for Refuse Disposal Contractors; $302.5M outstanding for wage and salary deductions; $449.5M for contractors who executed drainage works; $240,000 for rental of vehicle and equipment and $112.062M for other miscellaneous creditors.
It was noted on the documents that “agencies such as GPL, GTT statements reflect as November, 2017.”

Notably, a number of contractors who were hired to weed, clean and desilt various sections of the city were owed a collective sum of $449.5M. It is the strong belief of the APNU Councillor that all of the contracts were handed out by King without following the correct procedure.

The councillor, in explaining the established procedure, said the City Engineer must first indicate that there is need for a particular project to be executed. That engineer is expected to formulate a contract document detailing the works to be done with appropriate estimates.

“That allows persons to bid, there must be a bidding process…When that bidding process is completed, and that document goes to the City Works Committee, the City Works Committee deliberates on the works and approve, then it then goes to full council,” the councillor explained.

Once approved by the full council, the Finance Committee is instructed to issue the required payment based on the availability of finance.
According to the councillor, that procedure was not followed. The councillor is alleging that the City Works Committee has not scrutinised any proposed work in a very long time.
“The only thing I know was done, was that Mr King sat in his office, the contractor goes to him, and they sign off the contract, and the contractor gone his way with the contract,” the APNU councillor alleged.

According to him, he is unaware whether the engineer proposed all or some of the works, or the magnitude of his involvement in the entire process.
“All we know is that these things appear and we are told that we are so much billion dollars in debt, and we recognise that it is as a result of contracts, and when we saw the contracts we know none came to the City Works Committee,” the councillor said.

Asked why the City Works Committee did not raise an alarm after seeing works being executed in the city without its knowledge, the councillor said that committee members had requested from the clerk a list of all the contractors and contracts, including the scope of work, but to date the documents are still to be provided.
“On more than one occasion we asked for these things, and they never come to us,” he lamented.

SILENT
According to the councillor, the Finance Committee has been silent on these matters. “To the best of my knowledge, the Finance Committee has not brought any allegation to the Council to say these are works going on and we don’t know anything about these works,” he posited.

The APNU councillor pointed out that the late Councillor Junior Garrett, who also sat on the Finance Committee, had raised similar concerns shortly before his passing.
Excerpts from a report of the City Engineers’ Department for the month of December, 2017, revealed that Garrett had expressed some concerns.

“Councillor Junior Garrett said he saw proposed capital works for the month of January, 2018, and asked whether the works were agreed upon by the City Works Committee, and what was the cost of the works,” a section read. Garrett had also questioned who authorised the demolition of a fence at the cemetery which was constructed through forms of donation. It was the view of Garrett that City Hall had more important projects to address.
In response, the town clerk said that the works that were being done at the cemetery were

not capital works, but rather maintenance works and such did not require the attention of the City Works Committee.

The Guyana Chronicle, however, was told that any project or work costing $250,000 or more is required to be placed before the City Works Committee and subsequently the full council.
But chairman of the Finance Committee, Oscar Clarke, who is also an APNU coalition councillor sitting on the council, is maintaining that the council only has a debt of less than $2B. According to him, approximately $1.2B of the total sum is owed to the GPL, and a payment plan has been agreed.

Clarke said any decision that is made by the Finance Committee or any other committee has to be ratified by the full council. According to him, all payments issued by the committee, is in keeping with approvals granted by the full council. Clarke also denied having any knowledge of King’s alleged bypassing of established procedures to hand out contracts to his friends and associates.

While denying that the Council has a debt of more than $3B, Clarke said what is known, is that more than $4B is owed to City Hall for rates and taxes by businesses. These allegations are surfacing at a time when King is faced with a no-confidence motion brought against him by Alliance For Change (AFC) Councillor Sherod Duncan over misconduct.