Dear Editor,
Quite recently, many of us have been bemused by the political verbiage and display of energy of the apparently reinvigorated and rejuvenated Mayor and City Councillors, no longer distracted it would seem, by their continuous glaring and mischievous efforts to embarrass and sabotage the efforts of the legitimate PPP/C government to bring improvements to the quality of lives of the Guyanese people. They are perhaps enthused by the fact that they are now in partnership with and serving their own government, and they can now direct their energies towards providing, at the least, some of the services they ought to have been providing to the citizens of Georgetown over the past two decades, viz, maintaining the internal drains and canals, fixing the kokers/pumps/sluices and collecting the household garbage as well as that in public spaces.
And while I hasten to encourage the council, its underutilized staff, the volunteers and beneficiaries including the private businesses, may I also express the hope that it is not merely a short-term display of showmanship aimed at attracting attention and concomitant personal benefits, but the beginning of a renewed effort to provide citizens with the services the council has denied them for some time. While the council expended some 55% to 60% of the citizens’ rates and taxes on employment costs over the years, it denied the very citizens the range and quality of services to which they legitimately looked forward. Is this the same city council the Mayor claims was starved of financial resources by the PPP/C government to provide important core services to citizens?
Indeed, I have noted that the Mayor continues to shamelessly and without good cause blame the PPP/C government for starving the council of financial and other support and, in his own defence of the council’s unpreparedness to deal with the recent heavy rainfall, blames the recent massive flooding of Georgetown primarily on the malfunctioning of sluices, kokers and pumps under the council’s control.
I wish to draw attention to the fact that over the past eight years the PPP/C government did provide significant financial and other material support to the city council to complement its work.
Add to this the several billions of dollars paid by ratepayers over the same period, and one can only honestly conclude that these resources were for the most part misused by the council.
Where is the evidence of quality work done by the council?
Details of the support provided by the PPP/C government to the city council are detailed below. This support includes the significant intervention by the PPP/C government under the Clean up My Country Programme, which saw just over $0.5M from our country’s 2014 national budget being expended on cleaning main canals, community drains, servicing kokers and sluices, etc, in Georgetown.
The Clean-up Programme emphasized the fact that the Clean-up exercise was not a one-off activity but that the local authorities including the city council were expected to sustain the very communal assets that were cleaned/rehabilitated by government. This included some of the city council’s trucks that were rehabilitated under the Clean up Programme.
I wish to emphasize my expectation and that of the PPP/C that the council focuses on its legitimate business which must include providing on a continual basis, drainage/ infrastructure and public health services to the citizens of Georgetown.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Whittaker
