–says Mayor Narine

DESPITE the challenges brought on by the May-June rainy season, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is doing the best it can with a limited budget to manage the city’s drainage system.

This is according to Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine, who told a statutory meeting on Monday that notwithstanding the circumstances, the Council has been able to stay afloat.

At the local government level, some displeasure was recently expressed regarding flash floods in the capital city.

Several government ministers had raised concerns, noting that the City Council should, and can do more to minimise flooding across the capital city. The ministers argued that the amount of rainfall we’ve experienced should not have affected the city to the extent that it did, and informed the city officials that the government would assume active monitoring of the operations of the city’s drainage pumps and sluices.

Additionally, the Local Government Commission had written acting Town Clerk Sherry Jerrick some two weeks ago, requesting that she provide information within 24 hours on actions taken against pump attendants whose negligence may have contributed to flooding in many areas around Georgetown.

However, Narine, during the meeting highlighted that the Local Government Act states that no government body has the capacity to intervene in the affairs of the council.

“The Local Government Act clearly stated to deal with employment, discipline matters, regulations, transfers and issues related to the human resources management,” he said.

“I did not come across anything in the Act that the Commission must intervene in matters that this council should form policies and put guidelines there for the officers to follow,” the mayor added.