Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo today repeated his call for the Mayor and City Council to discard the controversial parking meter project in its entirety.
In a statement, Jagdeo expressed full solidarity and support for the protest against the imposition of this project which he said lacks transparency and brings additional burden to people.
He asserted that “a reduction of rates will be merely palliative and does not in any way address the transparency issue or ease the burden on our citizens who are already overwhelmed with excessive increases in almost 200 new taxes, fees and VATTABLE items in less than two (2) years of the APNU+AFC government.’’
Jagdeo also decried what he said was the duplicitous positions and complicit role of the Granger government on this matter. “They started out by disowning the project claiming local government autonomy but Minister Bulkan has signed By-laws into effect. The government sought to mislead and deceive Guyanese by claiming Cabinet and the Attorney-General had not approved the bylaws. If that is true, then the President should sanction Minister Bulkan. However there is grave suspicion about this being a concoction to obfuscate the matter. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the parking meter project could not have been implemented without the signing of those By-laws.’’
The statement said that from all indications, the Granger government supported the project from its inception and throughout while the APNU+AFC dominated Georgetown Mayor & City Council was emboldened by the support.
The Opposition Leader says he remains supportive of the civil society protest and that nothing short of scrapping the parking meter project will suffice.
