MORE residents have come forward to express dissatisfaction with the way in which the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC)-controlled City Hall is managing Georgetown.

Those cries and concerns were made recently through a series of trending videos. An older woman in one of the videos expressed the utmost disgust with the condition of the Georgetown seawall.

Highlighting that City Hall has been controlled by the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R)/APNU for a number of years, the woman said: “They [PNC] were there for so [many] years and if this is not improving, I feel someone else should take over.”

She went on to say: “All these bottles and plastic bags and stuff like that is here on this seawall, this morning [and] it looks very horrible. We need a change from City Hall because this is not good enough for us, as Guyanese.”

Calling out the City Hall management for their empty promises, a man in another video said that Le Repentir Cemetery is a mess, labelling it “a jungle” because of the overgrowth of bush, weeds and long grass.

According to him: “The last council promised to get it [the cemetery] clean and we haven’t seen it clean up to now.”

Further, a vendor at the East Ruimveldt Market expressed disappointment with the poor performance by City Hall. Apart from the piles of garbage outside of the market, the woman said it is a similar state inside.

She further said that despite vendors paying fees to City Hall every month, the deplorable state of the market is not only disrespectful, but it is also unacceptable and shows their incompetence.
“We think that it is time we get a change,” a resident of Lodge said in a different snippet.

He remarked that despite the community paying their taxes on time, they still have to go into their own pockets to maintain their community in many ways, such as cleaning the parapets and drains, among other things.

Local Government Elections are scheduled for June 12. The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) will be contesting all Local Authority Areas (LAAs) and hopes to increase its representation in Georgetown at the level of the City Council, which is currently controlled by the PNC-led APNU+AFC.

According to reports, at the last Local Government Elections in 2018, APNU won a total of 21 seats, while the PPP/C gained seven seats and the Alliance For Change (AFC) was allotted two.
After serving some five years as Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine has decided against contesting in the upcoming Local Government Elections, noting that he has already given the job his “best shot.”

Narine was elected to the post of mayor in 2018 and throughout his tenure faced immense backlash over a wide array of issues surrounding management of the city.