It seems that Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and her APNU councillors still have not really grasped the true nature of what has happened in relation to their pet project, viz, the parking meters. Their opinion of the citizens of Georgetown is still so retrograde, so rooted in an earlier era, that they believe Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan all on his own is responsible for the mass protest against the scheme.
The Mayor, it seems, is incapable of accepting that the long-suffering residents of this city (and those in its immediate environs), took matters into their own hands, and that they did so some time before they went out onto the street in front of City Hall. And the boycott wasn’t organized by anyone; it was just a case of individual citizens taking individual decisions not to feed the parking meters. After that, WhatsApp came into its own, and the protest within a few days took on a physical form of expression, although even that had no leaders, no agents provocoteurs, no party political tint. Perhaps Ms Chase-Green is unfamiliar with the social media scene.
Whether or not that is the case, she and her councillors certainly know a street demonstration when they see one, and because they saw a few PPP figures in the crowd, the Mayor’s first allegations were that this was a protest organized by Freedom House. No one took her seriously, because all the participants and the huge numbers who sympathise with them know very well that the PPP, despite its best efforts, has no purchase on this situation, no matter how many of its members are on parade outside City Hall. Even Ms Chase-Green was soon forced to abandon that theory.
So then the capital’s Chief Citizen, who seems wedded to the view that some agent other than the people must be responsible for her parking meter woes, cast around for another scapegoat. “Look at what you have caused,” the Mayor ranted at her Deputy during last Monday’s council meeting; “There is civil disobedience all because you are misinforming them. How do you feel, Sir? How do you feel? Proud?”
Exactly what misinformation she is talking about has everyone a bit nonplussed. The deal was secret (she says it wasn’t, but she must be using her own personal dictionary which is not in the sphere of public language to define that word); the meter rates were exorbitant and unrealistic; and the penalties were unacceptable, among other problems. In addition, even if, for the sake of argument, the Deputy Mayor had ‘misinformed’ the public on any aspect of this execrable project, that is not what caused the boycott or the protests outside City Hall; citizens demonstrated about what was in plain sight, so to speak, not what they were told by any critic of the meters.
Well if the Mayor and her APNU councillors are constructing distorted causal sequences to explain a change in the temper of the times they can’t – or won’t ‒ see, a sliver of reality in contrast may be penetrating the central government’s mental fortifications. After Dr Brian O’Toole wrote a letter in this newspaper complaining about VAT on private education, and a petition was started online to request that the tax be removed, we reported Minister of the Presidency Joseph Harmon yesterday as saying that the matter was under review. “What I can say is that it did attract the attention of Cabinet and Minister Jordan is examining it, and is going to come out with a very clear statement…” he was quoted as telling reporters. He also said that several private schools had written the government on the subject.
Exactly what Minister of Finance Winston Jordan will recommend remains to be seen, but certainly earlier he had appeared to take a hard line being quoted as saying, “VAT is not a cure for social ills; it is first and foremost a fiscal tool… There is no VAT on public education; it remains the choice of the parent. Government is not making that choice for them.”
In a letter in today’s edition in response to our editorial on Friday, the Minister refers to the government’s increased allocation for education, signalling the high priority given to the sector. He also says that VAT will be used to cure social ills. One can only remark that his approach could be perceived by the parents of private school children as a case of private education subsidising public education. This is hardly an argument which would commend itself to them, considering that they are already through their other taxes paying for public education. Whether the private schools would entertain absorbing the VAT themselves, as the Minister suggests, is not known.
Be all of that as it may, the very fact that Cabinet is looking at the matter again, and that the Minister of Finance is examining it, might suggest that Minister Harmon and his colleagues are more familiar with social media and more aware of the problems it could cause than are the Mayor and her APNU councillors. What will of course concern the Cabinet in the case of a budget which is so unpopular among all sectors of the population, is whether the issue of VAT on private education will be the end of the story.
As for the Mayor, she might be well advised to cease insulting those she perceives as her critics, observe events, come to terms with reality, and adjust her demeanour accordingly. The current lesson for herself and her colleagues may not yet be over. Everyone waits to see whether citizens will accept the new parking rates or not. The real test will come when the bye-laws are approved. In addition, there is a court case which Ms Chase-Green cannot automatically assume the M&CC will win. Whatever the outcome, local governance in the capital will never be the same again.
