–Mayor and Deputy Mayor abruptly end press conference after faced with questions on accountability  

MAYOR of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine and Deputy Mayor, Alfred Mentore, on Monday held a press conference to address several issues raised about accountability and transparency at City Hall, but instead took a limited number of questions and refused to answer questions about accountability at the municipality.

As the pair, along with other councillors present, began to face heated questions from journalists, the Mayor abruptly stood up and ended the press conference.

Mayor Narine was then approached by a reporter from the Guyana Chronicle about other unaddressed issues; however, he directed further questions to the Deputy Mayor.

However, “me ain’t able answer any more questions,” was all that Mentore offered as he walked away.

Although they held the press conference to “clear the air,” the APNU+AFC Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has instead left more questions than answers about the management of funds at City Hall.

The question of accountability at City Hall has returned to the fore after it was highlighted by Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, during an online broadcast interview last Friday.

During the interview, the Vice-President noted that the lack of accountability and transparency at the M&CC makes it impractical for central government to be able to continue to directly hand over money to the municipality.

Given the M&CC’s well-documented reputation, over the years, of a lack of accountability of its own funds, as well as the funds allocated by central government, the Vice-President argued that City Hall has proven that it cannot be trusted to handle the disbursement and management of funds allocated.

In addressing this issue, Mentore attempted to lay the blame for the council’s past financial discrepancies at the feet of previous councils, saying that as for the current council, central government should “give us a chance to prove ourselves.”

“Don’t be labelling us and painting us with the same brush that some other previous council [were painted with]. Give us a chance and an opportunity to be able to deal with those issues to handle matters, and if it is we did not perform as expected, then you could call us out. But you cannot call us out if there’s no charge and evidence against us to deal with this issue,” Mentore said.

However, when called upon to answer to the fact that many of the present M&CC councillors were also present on the council during years of “mismanagement,” the Mayor could not clearly establish how the current council was different from previous councils at City Hall.

City Hall is run by a 30-seat council. Currently, 21 of the seats are held by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) led by the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU); two seats are held by the Alliance For Change (AFC), and seven by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).

Over the years, the PNC/R has successively held the seat of Mayor. Narine, a PNC/R member, was elected Mayor in November, 2018. His predecessor was Patricia Chase-Green, who was Mayor from 2016 – 2018. Chase-Green, a PNC/R member who is still a councillor, has been on the council since 1994.

Prior to Chase-Green the mayorship was held by Hamilton Green, a PNC/R member who governed from 1994 to 2016.

Green, who is no longer on the council, presided over City Hall during the 10-year gap when no audits were done.

Also present at Monday’s press conference was councillor Oscar Clarke, who has also been on the council for some years now, and has served as Chairman of the Finance Committee.

City Hall had received incremental disbursements of $300 million in 2015, $200 million in 2016, $200 million in 2018, and $300 million in 2019, through the Georgetown Restoration Programme.

However, from the 2016 allocation, the M&CC could not produce any evidence accounting for some $70.489 million out of the $200 million, given prior to that, in the 2015 allocation, there was no evidence of payments totalling $12.816 million.

In November 2017, the APNU+AFC Cabinet also gave its approval for a grant of $475.635 million to be disbursed to M&CC through the Ministry of Communities.

However, from these funds, the Auditor General was unable to verify the completeness, accuracy and validity of amounts totalling $374.545 million.

Mentore said the glaring irregularities, and lack of accountability raised by the Auditor General are “micro-issues.”

“Those documents that the Auditor General asks for, that is not in our remit. Those documents are within the remit of the administration. So, how was it that the council that is obviously trying to manage and administer at the level of directors have to deal with those micro-issues,?” Mentore queried.