…tells CoI of unilateral decisions, questionable spending

TOWN CLERK Royston King’s disposition of making unilateral decisions and questionable deals are what prompted former deputy Mayor, Sherod Duncan, to file a no-confidence motion against him, the Commission of Inquiry into the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (MCC) heard on Wednesday.

The no-confidence motion was tabled against King earlier this year, but it was not allowed to be debated. Armed with a host of documents to justify his claims, Duncan noted the many instances when the Town Clerk went beyond his powers or failed to respond to request for information.

Duncan cited the case of the removal of vendors from the Stabroek Market Square, the removal of vendors at Robb Street, the implementation of container fees and the situation with King illegally leasing council lands, all without those matters ever being discussed at the council meetings. “In my mind there has been a series of issues where the Town Clerk institutes an action and then comes to council to ratify it. It took us quite [by] surprise as a council that the Stabroek Market vendors were removed from the Stabroek Market Square. The issue never came before the council; if you check the minutes of meetings you would never find it there,” Duncan explained.

“That kind of unilateral action again was displayed when the vendors of Robb Street were removed. Incidentally, the Mayor was out of the jurisdiction at that point and I was discharging the functions of Mayor and yet the Town Clerk never informed me that the vendors were going to be moved. I had to learn about it through the news like everybody else– implementation of a container fee. There was unilateral action by the Town Clerk to block certain businesses which were not forthcoming with the container fee.”

Duncan was one of two persons who presented statements during the morning session of the CoI; the other person being an engineer of the council, Kabila Hollingsworth, who told the CoI of incidents whereby he was discriminated against and has been victimised following what he termed to be an unjust hearing against him chaired by Councillor Oscar Clarke.

Parking meter
Noting the parking meter contract as an example, Duncan also noted that there were worrisome instances of the Town Clerk claiming that contracts were awarded by the previous council, yet when asked to produce evidence to show, he failed to do so. “One of the things that the Town Clerk has used is saying that a decision is of the previous council but you have no evidence in minutes to say that this is the decision of the previous council. And so they [Town Clerk and Mayor] used this occasion to say that this parking meter contract was signed by the previous council and they are executing on it,” Duncan elaborated, adding that:

“Councillors have asked for those previous decisions of the previous councils and to date we have not been furnished with any of that. Councillor Greggory Fraser made a request in writing for the Town Clerk to show where the former council allegedly agreed to the metered parking system for Georgetown; that has not been forthcoming.”

Duncan also noted that he was never given a reply whenever he sent correspondences to either the Town Clerk or Mayor, no matter the subject of the correspondence. He listed a total of seven instances whereby he sent written notices to the Mayor and or Town Clerk about varying issues and never received replies.

Additionally, Duncan contended that King has been misusing an emergency clause that allows him to bypass the tendering process in the award of contract. “From the time I’ve been a councillor I have not seen a contract, a lease document; I’ve never seen any come before council besides the parking meter contract, and it took months of agitation to get the parking meter contract. There is wanton abuse of the emergency clause which talks about the variation of tender procedures in cases of emergency. If you have an emergency you can go to tender and you are allowed to bypass that system and you have to report to council afterwards, but you can’t argue that the parking meter contract was an emergency,” Duncan pointed out.

Duncan also touched on the audit that was conducted into City Hall, which caused the Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, to complain of non-cooperation by City Hall and to threaten legal action. “The other thing I found worrisome is the whole issue with the Auditor General’s report 2016/2017 which dealt with $300M that was given by the Central government to deal with the Georgetown restoration programme that was managed by City Hall. That report from the Auditor General spelt out several alarming things. For instance, the Auditor General stated that there were invoices for payments that did not have the correct approval signatures; several million dollars could not be accounted for, and issues like that,” he said.