It is highly unlikely that there will be anything even remotely resembling a shortage of persons and, it seems, institutions, queuing up to provide evidence in the forthcoming Commission of Inquiry into the running of the Georgetown municipal administration.
Many of the themes of those submissions are likely to range from matters relating to the levels of competence and efficiency demonstrated by the functionaries (not least the Town Clerk) responsible for the management of the municipality, the administration of municipal markets and the treatment of vendors, underhand and corrupt practices associated with various aspects of service provision, influence peddling in the award of contracts and other matters pertaining on the whole to integrity and accountability.
All of these are charges that have been levelled at the municipal administration from time to time and there is little doubt that there will be witnesses coming forward with a host of pent up frustrations (and in some instances, prejudices) waiting to take aim at the Town Clerk and the wider municipal administration.
Looking back, the current Stabroek Wharf issue, the earlier collapse of a section of the Stabroek Market Roof, the administration of market and street vending, and garbage disposal, are among the issues on which the municipal administration is bound to come under scrutiny. Insofar as matters to do with the smooth running of business is concerned there will doubtless be myriad accusing fingers pointed at the municipal administration and it is likely that numbered amongst those will be a fair few vendors from our municipal markets who, for the most part have had to deal with the consequences of City Hall’s ineptitude.
The now sent-on-leave Town Clerk Royston King has never seemed to tire of asserting that such inefficiencies in service delivery as attach themselves to City Hall are largely a function of a scarcity of resources. While that is undoubtedly true, it would not be unfair to say that the financial circumstances of the municipality reposes in some measure in the failure of the City’s administration to put in place reliable mechanisms for revenue-collection. Indeed, there has even been the assertion – not once, but numerous times – that the revenue-collection regime has become intertwined with the broader culture of corruption at City Hall, and that it is this, as much as anything else, that has compromised the efficiency of the municipality to operate an effective revenue-collection regime.
One, of course, cannot neglect to wonder aloud as to how and why the administration of our capital has been allowed to evolve in the manner that it has over several years (there is no doubt that the current problems of the municipality did not begin with the present administration and clearly, this is one of the considerations that any objective COI must take into account), though we already know that part of the answer reposes in the fact that urban administration had long become intertwined with party politics in the most vulgar manner and that it is this, as much as anything else, that is responsible for the current condition of city administration.
Of course, the problem with a COI has to do with whether or not it will be pursued with the relevant expeditiousness since one imagines that for as long as it persists there will occur a further level of disruption in the administration of municipal affairs. There is too, the political dimension to this development that has to do with the direction in which the probe goes and the political decisions that are made or not made, as the case may be, as to who carries the proverbial can and who gets overlooked.
Certainly, there is a clear and obvious case for a probe that embraces particular departments (and where applicable, individuals) within the municipal administration, not least, those responsible for providing building permission, rates and tax collection, and the allocation of contracts. What we do not expect to see in a COI report is a cynical ‘looping’ of the age-old and already widely-known of the fact that there are City Constabulary functionaries who are ‘on the take’ so to speak, since those are precisely the telltale signs of a glossing over of the really serious issues, not least the widely-held view that beyond those City Constables who look forward to their perks that accrue from turning a blind eye to relatively harmless indiscretions by market vendors, corruption is embedded far more deeply within the bowels of the municipal regime.
Once there are indications of that kind of approach it will be a clear sign that the whole purpose of the COI would have been no more than a cynical attempt to placate City Hall’s detractors. If a COI cannot set out first, to avoid taking the proverbial ‘year and a day’ to get its work done and if, secondly, it is not going to provide us with the sort of informed, enlightened and poignant outcomes that relate directly to the start of a genuine process towards bringing the protracted regime of lawlessness that has prevailed at City Hall to an end, then it really isn’t worth the bother, and of course, the cost.s
