Overseas consultants to advise on City Hall restoration

Two overseas-based consultants are expected to arrive later this month to assess the architecture of City Hall and advise on what needs to be done to restore the building to its glory.

Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green made the announcement at the council’s statutory meeting yesterday.

The consultants, an architect and an engineer from the United States and the Caribbean, are expected in Guyana on April 23 for a two-day trip.

The cost of their visit will be taken care of by the private sector, Green further added.

Earlier in the year a special technical committee was expected to be set up to put together a file on the City Hall building to facilitate its restoration, which needs to be done urgently.

A $20M allocation was budgeted by the government last year for the restoration of the building but to date only $5M has been used for works on the building, which included the fixing of some windows.

The issue of payments to the media houses for the advertisement to fill vacancies after the dismissals of five senior officers last year was also raised at the meeting.

On this issue, acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba stated that she would not be paying the cost for the advertisement of the vacancies because she was not the one who placed the ad.

This prompted councillor Ranwell Jordan to say that ever so often the Town Clerk feels that she can do as she wants but she is the servant of the council and should carry out the decisions of the council.

The decision was taken by the council to advertise the vacancies at an earlier meeting, Public Relations Officer of City Hall Royston King stated when asked about the issue.

The services of Town Clerk Yonette Pluck-Cort, City Engineer Gregory Erskine, acting City Treasurer Andrew Meredith, Director of the Solid Waste Management Unit Hubert Urlin, and Accounts Clerk Troy Isaacs  were terminated “in the public interest,” from December 31, 2012.