Dear Editor,
For years now, I always wondered why the Georgetown Municipality was always cash strapped and broke in spite of having massive budgets, such as the last one which they approved for over two billion dollars for 2022. Equally puzzling is the fact that City Council has long stopped providing day care services, road building and maintenance in the city, hardly provide food hygiene, animal slaughter and meat inspection services, are no longer responsible for refuse disposal services, allowed the cemetery to become a jungle, do not weed parapets or clear drains, no longer takes care of stray animals and never fog for mosquitoes, yet they devour those whopping sums of money each year.
But the recent announcement in the press that a motion was successfully piloted, by no lesser a person than the Mayor, and approved by the City Councillors of Georgetown for payment of all outstanding benefits be made to the deposed Town Clerk, Royston King, in like manner to a payout approved for former Town Clerk Carol Sooba, brings full clarity and understanding to me now, as to why the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown have been and continue to be in such a financial mess.
The approval of this motion, which is clearly political tit for tat, can only be described as reckless, shameful and unscrupulous. It is just shocking that our city fathers and mothers could descend to such depraved politicking at the expense of the citizenry. I guess one would have to say that the Georgetown Municipality is the place to work. Where maladministration, inefficiency, misconduct and malfeasance and finally termination of services are handsomely rewarded and celebrated. Where persons who were dishonourably discharged could enjoy the same benefits and more as those who have worked hard, honestly and dutifully.
The property rates and municipal fees paid to the Georgetown Municipality are not intended for the Mayor and his comrades to payout as political patronage but to restore the city to its former glory. I call on the Minister of Local Government and the Local Government Commission to put a stop to this madness and I call on GECOM to have the overdue local government elections held quickly to save the citizens of Georgetown from this pillage of the City’s treasury.
Sincerely,
Jermain Johnson
