– Narine re-elected City Mayor

UBRAJ Narine has been re-elected Mayor of Georgetown for the third consecutive time, with his Deputy, Alfred Mentore, also being returned to his post by councillors of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)-led City Council.

The elections took place Monday afternoon in the compound of the municipality with only 18 councillors showing for APNU and four representing the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The PPP abstained in all of the voting processes.

A new Finance Committee was also installed and People’s National Congress (PNC) stalwart, Oscar Clarke, was returned as its chairman, with other elected members being Ivelaw Henry, Alfred Mentore, Yvonne Ferguson, Clayton Hinds, and Heston Bostwick.

Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, who was absent from the proceedings, had requested that the elections be held during the period of December 9 and 16, but the City Council went ahead with selecting its own date.

In an invited comment, Dharamlall said such a move by the City Council does not augur well for a good relationship moving forward. Following his re-election, the mayor started his presentation by noting that his two years in office so far have not been easy.

“It…got me grey hairs but I believe grey hair is wisdom,” he said, adding that the period has also seen “lots of misunderstandings” between him and the deputy mayor. “But we have to disagree to agree.”

Narine and the council has been criticised for not coming up with any new or improved policies since taking office, but the mayor named three policies (filming, leasing, and pile driving) that he said they have been able to implement so far.

He said the by-laws governing the City Council need to be revised and reformed as they are outdated, especially when it comes to building codes and taxes, and he chided the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), along with the Private Sector Commission (PSC) for yielding to politics. He said the good relationship that existed between the council and these agencies came to an end once the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) took office.

As it relates to his relationship with the administrative arm of the City Council, led by Town Clerk (ag), Sherry Jerrick, Narine said: “I don’t hold any grudge to administration. Administration may have their views while councillors and myself have our views.”

But he advised those officers to be neutral. “Do not play politics. Do not get yourselves involved in politics. Work for the council. Stick to 28:01.”

The City Council, according to him, is opposed to the use of a landfill facility. “We believe that landfills will cause harm to our water, our environment; and diseases can also emerge from these. I believe the way to go is clean up and ‘green up’. We need a recycling plant in our country. We need a national solid waste management plan and I call on the local government minister to take note.”

Narine again complained about the City Engineers’ Department and accused the chief engineer of taking political directives.

“They are doing lots of nonsense and it needs proper management. If the engineers have political friends, what you expect that council will do? The engineer seems to be taking political directions right now. There is a lot of work happening in the city that we are not aware of.”

Meanwhile, Minister Dharamlall said APNU has not done well in terms of leadership at the level of the city council, and that he is hoping the council will use the next year leading up to Local Government Elections to do much more.
“They’ve failed as a council when it comes to transparency and accountability.”

Dharamlall said the city council seems adamant that it will work against the efforts of the government, and that since the PPP/C took office last August, the mayor has been unable to do any substantive work to transform the city.

Councillor Dimitri Ali offered that while the PPP/C councillors expect that the council will always elect people from its own political party, he was disappointed that it didn’t choose at least one PPP councillor to sit on the Finance Committee.

The deputy mayor thanked former minister, Volda Lawrence, who was in attendance, for being a rock and support to the council, and he urged that the work of the council is recognised, and not just for something sensational or contentious. The mayor announced that staff of the municipality, along with Constabulary officers will receive all of their back pay before end of this year.