Dear Editor,
Former Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Mr Norman Whittaker, made snide remarks about the performance of the M&CC, Georgetown and M&TC, Linden in your letters column on July 31. Georgetown will answer for themselves. I am answering for Linden.
The former Minister must be aware, because we have had several run-ins with his team and their method of administration which we found very ordinary and beyond the pale, that we were not endeared to their schemes and rank discrimination. In fact we often referred to such management as of the Mickey Mouse type. After a while the ministry became a humbug to progress and brought little in their quest to control everything.
There was strong tendency by the past administration whenever local organs tried to operate independently to have deep suspicions, and then deliberate attempts would be made at thwarting. I have had such issues with the Chinese, Canadians, UNDP, IDB et al. There was an insane obsession with collaring projects and activities and making attempts to derail when resistance was shown. LEAD and GGEP were two funded by USAID and maybe because of the experience with GGEP the US decided not to be bullied and resisted any control of LEAD. Revocation of the project leader’s work permit followed as this was the face of a regime that had an obsession with control.
Once I sat and heard some drivel on the assumption of office of a Minister of Local Government. I could not restrain myself and went after the issue. After that I was ostracized until a meeting was arranged among stakeholders including the President, Opposition Leader, Regional Chairman, the Minister in question and advisors to the President. There were some inaccuracies in what was said until I was allowed to speak and cleared up the matter.
Mr Whittaker is out of order to suggest that the Minister of Communities was not practising the devolution of power and was eating his words when the three IMCs in the three towns controlled by the PPP were instituted. I wish not to get embroiled in this but I know this. All three councils (Anna Regina, Rose Hall and Corriverton) encountered problems with the manner of the past government installing IMCs. Mayor Hendrax was replaced without the procedure laid out by Mr Whittaker. I cannot blame him for this because he was not in office. However he was around in the case of Corriverton and Anna Regina. The flare-up with Mayor Roy Baijnauth was in the public domain. At one stage it appeared as though there were two chief citizens in Corriverton because Mayor Roy said he was going nowhere. In the case of Anna Regina Mayor Rampersaud was removed and the council replaced with an IMC. On speaking to my colleague he told me that an IMC was imminent due to attrition etc, but he was not told of the inquiry and the results/findings. (The few times we met I had a good working relationship with Chairman Prashad).
The Guyana Association of Municipalities (GAM) found itself in similar hot water from the MLGRD. Executive members were called and cussed out because it was felt that they were beholden to the regime. Our project which was supported by CIDA when we attempted to conduct training in software packages to help standardize and improve accounting procedures in all municipalities was stymied. Corriverton was not able to access that training because the MLGRD did not sanction it. Prior to the project’s commencement we approached the ministry and gave all the info on what we were doing. That did not appease. We conducted a pilot testing programme in New Amsterdam and asked the MLGRD to join us. Two officers made presentations and we have produced a module to help both municipal and NDC councillors in understanding their roles on getting into office. Yet when the accounting software training was done we had a major hurdle to cross with this ministry. Mr Whittaker needs to take the plank out of his eyes before throwing dust.
Local government elections were avoided like the plague by Mr Whittaker’s government. One of the Local Government Reform bills was not assented to by past President Ramotar but has now been assented to by President Granger paving the way for local government elections. Each year end the past government will pass a motion to defer local government elections for one year. This was a comedy. So how does Mr Whittaker summon the gumption to come now to write about what was done wrong by a regime in place after two months when his team had twenty three years to deal with it and did not? Some of us call that duplicity, but in the political cauldron some of us see that as standard fare.
Where Linden is concerned:
More than 15 compactor trucks were purchased by MLGRD but none was given to Linden. More than 30 tractors and trailers were purchased under the Clean up my Guyana $1b programme but we got none. Region 10 RDC was given a mini-excavator which I have not seen to date and it has not started to work. This is high class deception and Mr Whittaker is in defence of this level of management on a dark night.
Mr Whittaker spearheaded a project to privatize garbage collection in several regions, towns and NDCs. Linden was prone to resist this effort but was courteous enough to request information so that it could make an informed decision on behalf of its citizenry. No further consultation ensued but a contract was signed at the level of the RDC for the privatization of the solid waste management in the town without the council’s consent. To date the Town Council has not seen the contract. Moreover the council was informed that the two dumpsites we have on each shore were leased by the RDC to the contractor. As far as I am aware the land demarcated in 28:01 comes under the jurisdiction of the Linden Town Council. How could the folks at the ministerial level agree to such nonsense?
Mr Whittaker signed a by-law in September 2011 and by September 2013 he rescinded the order because he did not gazette it as he should have done. This cut the council’s revenue by 30%. What kind of spiteful system was in operation?
There are many more instances of poor management which I can relate but I will stop here. Mr Whittaker is not on solid ground for criticizing anything on local government. Anything.
Yours faithfully,
Orrin Gordon
