MINISTER of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall has called on Georgetown Mayor, Ubraj Narine, to present to the citizens of Georgetown and the country the Audited Financial Statements of the Council, and account for the billions of dollars in rates and taxes being collected by the municipality.
Minister Dharamlall spoke on the matter in a letter to the editor, where he responded to previous published claims by Narine that letters were sent to the Auditor General in January of every year seeking for audits to be done at City Hall.

According to Dharamlall, the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (MCC) has seen nothing but countless cases of misplaced financial documents, schemes of fraud are unearthed, while queries by the Auditor General are left unanswered because of unaccounted or misplaced financial records.
Dharamlall laid the blame at the feet of Narine’s party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), which has since formed the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and partners with the Alliance For Change (AFC).

The PNC and its affiliates have been in charge of the MCC for over 50 years now, and has been blamed for the continued mismanaged state of the capital city.
“The PNC-led Council, later APNU+AFC Council of Georgetown has failed to give documented account for their spending of tax payers’ money. They have failed to implement systems and strategies to ensure that the more than one billion dollars in rates and taxes collected annually are properly documented and accounted for,” Dharamlall contended.
“Can the Mayor present to the citizens of Georgetown and the country by extension the Audited Financial Statements of the Council? The answer is a resounding NO. Why? There is none. How can City Hall properly account for monies when there is no record of their spending of it? What is there to audit? Yet the Mayor, in his fine fashion, continues to masquerade publicly with spurious claims and calumny.”

According the Dharamlall, the APNU-led Council has been an abysmal failure to the people of Georgetown.
Dharamlall has also dismissed claims by Narine that the Council applied for permission from the Local Government Commission to live stream statutory meetings, but was rejected because of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP) Commissioners at the commission.
Dharamlall reminded that Narine has been elected Mayor since November 2018, when the LGC was dominated by Commissioners appointed by the APNU, so it incomprehensible how the LGC denied the request under the PPP/C tenure.

“I shudder to respond to this pathetic excuse except to say that the PPP/C government only swore in the current Commissioners in April 2021. It was under the APNU+AFC government that the Local Government Commission was enforced. Therefore, the decision-making power was within the broken cradle of leadership, or for better phrase, ‘lack of leadership’, of the then APNU+AFC government.
“The PPP/C government was never responsible for such a decision regarding livestreaming of the Council’s meetings. Nonetheless, kudos to the government for pledging their commitment to bring live-streaming into fruition,” Dharamlall noted.

The issue of the live streaming of the MCC statutory meetings has become a point of contention after PPP General Secretary, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, noted that should the PPP be given a chance to lead City Hall, it would be one of the measures implemented to increase accountability and transparency at the council.
“This is testimony to the PPP’s mandate of transparency at every level, including the Local Government. This move will ensure citizens of Georgetown are aware of the level at which the Council functions and how their elected constituency members are making representation for their rights, a move which accentuates accountability. The APNU-led Council rejected this motion because implementing it would expose their unaccountability, incapacities, inabilities, callous, crooked and cunning nature and it would further reveal the perpetuity of all uncanny ulterior motives to the public,” Dharamlall said.

Georgetown is among the Local Authority Areas (LAAs) set to get a new council after Local Government Elections (LGEs) are held on Monday.
Though Georgetown has been a PNC stronghold district over the years, this year’s LGEs campaign has seen the PPP/C gaining momentum and making inroads in the city as citizens become increasingly wary of the state of the city, particularly as pertains to the solid waste management, as well as upkeep of several vital infrastructure including roads and drainage.
“A simple walk through any street of Guyana’s Capital is evidence of the gross mismanagement of the city under the PNC. For many years, the Council has failed in upholding its mandates as enshrined in Chapter 28:01. The result: clogged drains which are only cleared whenever there is a reported blockage, roads which are not maintained, parapets unkept, the Municipal Markets and buildings slowly crumbling, garbage is evident in every ward of the city,” Dharamlall said.