City Hall

AS a nation we should be better known. The latest municipal spectacle is a timely reminder of what the residents of Georgetown have grown accustomed to: a malfunctioning Mayor & City Council (M&CC). The headline screams, “City Hall appeals to Government for funds to offset over G$500 million in debt.” This is the latest act of executive incompetence at City Hall that has never been fixed since the departure of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) that left after former President Dr. Cheddi Jagan installed them in 1994. On that committee had served citizens of quality, who put Georgetown first rather than their political party and they included people like Dr. James Rose, Bert Carter, and others.

Within a few months of the IMC arriving at City Hall, the city had assumed a new look, with the Augean stables in Georgetown being cleaned for the first time in decades and the city was left in the black, a phenomenon not experienced ever since the PNC took control of City Hall.
Unfortunately, the people who control City Hall today have no control of the systems and clearly are out of touch with the needs of the citizens of the city.
Today, the beautiful structure left to Guyanese by the colonials is a decaying sore on the city landscape, and replicates the filth overwhelming the natural beauty of what was once called “The Garden City.”

Garbage is the norm rather than the exception now and many of the city’s drains have not been cleaned for the entire year. The Ministry of Public Works has now had to step in and fix the streets of Georgetown because this function has all but been abandoned by the mayor and his bunch of incompetent bureaucrats.

There is certainly no doubt that the financial status of the council would improve substantially should the many defaulters pay the arrears of what they owe on their rates. There are some prominent businesses, for example, who owe millions in arrears and it is unfortunate such a situation exists.
But it is most delinquent of City Hall not to approach the courts and leverage the services of a marshal or two and shut down the defaulters and sell their building to recover the taxes due, and you will observe how quickly this revenue situation will fix itself. But that does not fix the top-heavy bureaucracy at City Hall.

Consultant Ramon Gaskin did an excellent study on City Hall only to see that another bureaucrat dumped it in a corner. There is no end in sight for the suffering citizens of Georgetown. Fixing City Hall is simple – cut costs and increase your revenue stream and no, I am not speaking about a parking meter scheme at those prices. But why not a parking meter scheme at a reasonable price? Why not container tolls on all trucks that pass through the city?
Why not a toll for every mini-bus and vehicle that enters Stabroek Square and surrounding areas? But more importantly, why not a human resource audit at City Hall to drive an immediate 20 percent cut in the number of staff members at the top with the government funding the severance programme, but with a clear caveat that these positions will be abandoned permanently and the organisation chart and the mandate of the M & CC changed forever?
It is important that an IMC be installed at City Hall for two years to drive the changes needed and then fresh elections held to ensure that the new breed of politicians elected to office should be coming to an organisation with a stronger bank account, a more motivated and leaner staff complement and one that is focused on the needs of the citizens of the city. Georgetown just cannot continue on this lackadaisical and wayward path.

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