The management of the City of Georgetown has been palpably unflattering in many ways and for many years now. However, in just about a year or so, matters have come to a head with several dramatic occurrences. One such was the failure of an ambitious but poorly formulated and implemented parking meter project. Another was the Commission of Inquiry into the operations of the City Council which resulted in the removal of the contentious Town Clerk, Royston King, in a most dramatic fashion. Additionally, Local Government Elections held in late 2018 saw the exit of Patricia Chase-Green as Mayor and the ushering in of a fresh face to local politics in the young Councillor Ubraj Narine.
To say that the new Mayor has his work cut out for him would be quite an understatement. The Georgetown Mayor and City Council has been the source of controversy after controversy over the years. The garbage collection debacle is repeated each year without fail, wherein the City Council at some point is unable to pay its major garbage collectors. Currently, the City Council has ended the monopoly of its regular contractors, Puran Brothers Disposal Services Inc. and Cevon’s Waste Management Inc. by adding several smaller garbage disposal services citing a breach of contract by the two named companies. This is after the two companies withdrew their services on account of a huge sum totalling $160M owed to them by the City Council in what had become an annual fiasco. This time, despite the usual intervention from the Central Government to pay off the debt (which never seems to happen prior to the companies’ withdrawal of services) a miffed City Council has now accused the companies of a breach of contract and refused to re-engage them.
The constant contretemps with the vendors at the various markets, the continuing presence of itinerant vendors in the City’s streets and thoroughfares, and the aberrant functioning of the City Constabulary are all issues that erupt into the public notice from time to time. The decrepit state of sections of the historic City Hall building and its continuing deterioration has been rated among the more pressing matters requiring urgent attention for many years now, as the City Managers continue to tempt fate in inhabiting a deteriorating structure while, ironically, being responsible for censuring owners of dilapidated buildings and even having the power to tear them down.
Despite the litany of woes that besets the City Council, self-inflicted and otherwise, the new Mayor has sought to hit the ground running, making himself visible and accessible to the general public, participating in public-spirited clean up exercises around the City and meeting with various groups and organisations. Mayor Narine has met with the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) seeking to formalize relationships and has met with Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Guyana, Jernej Videtic, who presented him with a plan for the restoration of the City Hall along with the Mayor’s and Engineer’s buildings.
As reported on his Facebook page, the new Mayor met last Monday with the Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, who “committed to facilitating the training of officers of the City Constabulary” and discussed the acquisition of motor vehicles and other equipment also for the Constabulary. He has conducted walkarounds in the markets and has been reasonably visible in the first few months of his tenure. It would probably be accurate to say that the new Mayor, a young, inexperienced politician, has attempted to hit the ground running and make a good impact in his new role.
However, the key challenge that the Mayor and his deputy, Alfred Mentore, would have to face, probably greater than turning around the financial fortunes of the Mayor & City Council, is the professionalisation of the administration of the City. The online news outfit newsroom.gy recently posted a photograph of an alleged officer of the Public Relations department apparently fast asleep during a Statutory meeting of the City Council and in proximity to the acting Town Clerk, Sharon Munroe.
According to the online article, the Mayor voiced criticisms of the very Public Relations department, but his criticisms were rejected by Ms Munroe as “unfair,” leading the Mayor to advise the acting Town Clerk that she needed to “put her foot down” in the management of the City Council.
This type of useless squabble might be the modus operandi of the Mayor & City Council but it has no place in a modern, functioning organization. If the Town Clerk is effectively the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the City Council, then the Mayor is the Chairman of the Board of Councillors. It is the CEO’s duty as head of administration or management to execute the policies of the Board of Councillors incorporating this into the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the entire staff of the City Council. It is the Town Clerk’s responsibility as head of management to foster an atmosphere of professionalism among the employees of the Council. The Town Clerk is also supposed to facilitate the work of the Mayor and his Councillors in a “structured manner.” With the arrival of a new Mayor and Deputy Mayor taking up office in the City Hall compound, one would be compelled to expect that the human and other resources exist within the administration of City Hall to ensure a smooth accommodation and integration of the new officials, erasing the necessity for them to “start from scratch” as it were.
Mayor Narine and Deputy Mayor Mentore have an opportunity to preside over a resurgence of the Mayor & City Council, as does acting Town Clerk, Ms Munroe. It remains to be seen whether the Mayor & City Council can ever rise above partisan bickering and a narrow-minded obsession with pettiness and minutiae, to embrace vision and professionalism in executing their mandate towards the citizens of Georgetown.
