– allege development being stymied to suit political agenda

THE APNU councillors attached to the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) of Port Kaituma are calling on the Local Government Commission (LGC), Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan and other relevant authorities to intervene in a situation felt to be beyond their control.

The PPP/C-controlled NDC, they have alleged, is intentionally stymieing development in the constituencies to create the impression that central government does not care about the people’s welfare.

The residents listed several projects that were successfully completed by central government and even at the regional level. However, what is lacking is development within the constituencies, all under the purview of the NDC. The first solution to the matter, they opined, is to summon a general audit of the NDC’s finances.

The main means of garnering funds is through the toll station. APNU councillor Tiffnie Daniels related that the toll garnered enables the council to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. In addition to tolls, garbage collection is another means of garnering revenue. “The toll is very high, look for instance an excavator is $75, 000, truck is $12, 000; it’s high and persons are paying those [tolls] and the internal roads need to be done; the NDC suppose to do those things. We have the airstrip road, they are not doing anything and they are blaming the government, but government has nothing to do with that, we are the Local Democratic Council,” she said.

Since the opposition holds the majority on the Council, the four seats taken up by APNU out of the 12 are not enough to make decisions and push for development. Daniels said that for 2019, one statutory meeting was held and the other meetings should just be deemed as discussions, since the NDC’s overseer was not present. Since the new council was sworn in, she said, no public meeting or consultation was held with residents in the various constituencies.

While central government has completed main access roads, it is within the purview of the council to complete internal roads; this is not being done. She maintains that it is for a political agenda, to make the government look bad. “The coalition councillors don’t really know what is going on, they are not telling us, we are not having statutory,” she said.
Regional MP Richard Alleyne reiterated calls for the LGC to intervene and have a general audit by an independent agency to investigate the finances of the NDC. When the audit is completed, if irregularities are unearthed, immediate sanctions must be placed on those responsible. Alleyne said that in 2016 an audit was conducted and it was discovered that within six months, the NDC was short of $25 M. No one was sanctioned for this.