Dear Editor,
One day, the subject Minister announces ‘no interference’ in the parking meter fiasco.
Second day, the AFC intervenes to insist on containment of the project.
Third day, the government executive team meets with the Mayor and City Council to discuss the public impasse.
How does one interpret this sequence (if it can be so described) of disaggregated decision-making, except as indicative of posthumous haste and devoid of substantive analysis, consequently addressing only the superficial issue of pricing, that is, as reported in the press, all in response to civil pressure?
It is not as if the current mayoral regime has not been displaying a persistent proclivity to unbalanced management decision-making, suspect implementation of defective systems and procedures which all shout for serious investigatory auditing.
It continues to puzzle why the relevant authorities (?) refuse to concede that, not only are there citizens better informed than they, about the structure and management of local government systems, but these also recognise that the former’s equivocations on these matters too often portray a lack of substantive knowledge of the relevant legal constructs and implications. In the instant case the Municipal and District Councils Act is in need of further review and updating. Hopefully, in the process the concerned parties would recognise their substantive responsibility to vigorously manage the local government system, monitor performance, and where necessary, impose sanctions for the dereliction of duties legally assigned.
In the case of the oldest municipality in the country’s history, there must be full insistence that the latter sets a model of efficiency and integrity, particularly to younger counterpart institutions.
So that one continues to wonder at, and ponder on, the ministerial reluctance to revisit the Report into Mayor and City Council produced by the Burrowes Commission of Inquiry. It is a most comprehensive evaluation of the institutionalised faultlines in the council’s organisation structure and operational systems, to all of which the operative officials have defiantly refused to attend.
Surely citizens who confer authority on those whom they elect have a right to insist on a return of value on their investment?
This is not a ‘political’ issue. Quite the contrary, it is a fundamental matter of professionalism expected of a business designed to provide services to the citizens.
Somewhere one learnt that ‘the customer is always right’!
Yours faithfully,
EB John
