Dear Editor,
The frequent outbursts about a lack of financial resources by those at the helm of the city council are indeed clever attempts aimed at excusing themselves from culpability for council’s failure to provide the services it is required to deliver to citizens in return for the rates and taxes they pay. Furthermore, there is an obvious lack of interest on the part of the council in going after the huge debt of some citizens in respect of unpaid rates and taxes, estimated at some $22B, including accumulated interest as at December 31, 2016.
Consider if the council made every possible effort and was able to recoup even 50% of that debt. Even the amnesty offered to debtors does not attract the desired positive results which one would expect such offers to attract. This speaks volumes with respect to the proactiveness of the city council’s Debt Recovery Unit. If this is not damaging enough to the image the council projects as the largest municipality in our country, even that which is collected is poorly managed. The council appears to be interested primarily in those matters and measures in which members have a personal interest, instead of applying the competitive bidding process for the procurement of goods and services.
The issue of increasing the revenue base and so making more resources available to the Mayor & City Council cannot be considered independently of the present performance of the council where issues of accountability are concerned. Access to more resources must be based, inter alia, on service delivery and overall performance including transparency and accountability for resources already at the disposal of council. The latter’s present operations are shrouded in allegations of corruption, incompetence and arrogance. Furthermore, one must be mindful about supporting any measure that introduces increased costs and brings more hardship to citizens eg the proposed parking meter project.
Many reports of vendors paying city constables (the latter are not authorized to collect revenue) and no receipts being issued often go uninvestigated, while the council has been losing money perennially allegedly through the corruption of some revenue collectors. In short, it would appear that some revenue collected by City Hall officials from vendors does not find its way into the council’s coffers. A significant amount of market revenue collected is used to meet the employment costs of the city council, and this includes scores of inactive and underutilized council staff. Very little market revenue is expended on maintaining or improving or expanding market infrastructure, or, what is even more desirable, providing additional market infrastructure and so address the roadside vending and concomitant sanitation and other environment challenges occasioned by illegal vending.
Going after revenue is understandable as the city council could not provide the services the citizens require and expect without finances. Accounting to citizens for the public funds is also an obvious expectation, and so is council’s engagements with citizens to provide information/ updates with respect to the plans, expectations, work in progress of the council’s work programme. Regrettably this did not happen in the case of the council’s parking meter project. The city council has not been listening to the voice of the people. In fact, the council has not been making itself available itself to engage the people. The result has been a show of strength by the citizens. They have determined that they will make City Hall and the APNU+AFC government listen to them and address their concerns.
Consultation, inclusiveness and accountability must replace corruption, incompetence and arrogance as it relates to the council.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Whittaker
