Dear Editor,
I refer to a rather preposterous letter which appeared in your issue of Friday November 10, 2023 headlined: `Sugges-tion that city is being financially strangled due to political gamesmanship is baseless’, signed by 11 PPP/C Councillors. The letter pointedly questioned the journalistic integrity of Stabroek News and the management of the City Council. While I agree, in full, with the editorial on this matter (Hopeless/SN/9/11/2023) I shall confine my comments to those concerns raised in the letter on the work of the council.
However, before I unpack the contents of this missive, I must immediately point out to citizens that, in essence, this letter demonstrates the challenge faced by the council; lack of knowledge, on the part, of some councillors of their statutory duties and responsibilities. Not understanding the significance of their roles, the PPP/C councillors have attempted to shirk their fiduciary duties and other obligations to strike a pose of neutrality by hiding under the cover of a letter, which essentially seeks to cast blame for all the fault lines of the council at the other nineteen councillors.
Whilst I have no problem with councillors publicly expressing their personal opinions on issues it does seems grossly unfair for those, who indulge in this practice to do so at the expense of others. In any case, in so far as the work of the municipality is concerned, the Act, Chapter 28:01 (section 8 (1) (2); section 23(1); section 44) does not make any distinction between councillors of one political party or group and another; all city councillors are elected to govern the same local authority area – Georgetown – and have the same rights and responsibilities under the Act. Therefore, there can be no neutrality. Either councillors are part of the solution or part of the problem. They must choose.
The instant letter is simply a litany of inaccuracies about issues at the council. However, I would comment on a few of the glaring ones.
One such issue is the question of mismanagement at the council. For ages, the PPP/C government has been using this ruse to justify its unkind actions and political stance against the council. I must make two points here:
First, a look at the reports of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts of Guyana and on the Accounts of Ministries, Departments for 2020 and 2021 would reveal that certain issues are not unique to the city council; many government ministries and agencies are plagued with similar financial, systemic and competency problems. Indeed, certain ministries and their administrative departments are rife with examples of financial mismanagement.
A few days ago, a Member of Parlia-ment, who is also a member of the Public Accounts Committee researched and found that government contractors were paid, in some cases, in full, for projects that are only 30% and 50% completed. He also found what appears to be an abuse of the ‘Request a quotation system.’ In other cases, contracts awarded by government for infrastructural and other works had to be terminated even after substantial sums were paid to the contractors. I have not cited these examples to justify financial inefficiencies, at the council, but to demonstrate that, the government’s constant harping about mismanagement at the council is a subtle way to divert assistance and resources from the council and to distract the attention of citizens away from the real political and philosophical approach of de facto control of the city.
I would be the first to admit that there is need for financial reforms and more efficient ways of accounting for our operations. Only recently at one of my recent statutory meetings of the Council, I proposed as Mayor that we take a decision to resolve the backlog of audits outstanding and that a meeting be set with the Auditor General. That was done and achieved and what was realized is the urgent need for a cadre of professional officers proficient in local government financial management, accounting and related fields. This requires substantial resources not only for training staff already in the employ of the council and to recruit others but also to build the technological and other capacities within the municipality. But our efforts to properly move forward in this direction have been consistently frustrated by the Local Government Commission (LGC). Only recently due to these challenges we met with the Chairman and Vice Chairman of LGC to lay our complaints and seek to find common grounds to work for the betterment of City relations.
Regardless, we have been making efforts to secure the integrity of our systems by implementing certain policies. Our committees are undertaking more stringent oversight of the work of the departments allowing for more transparency and accountability in their activities and reports. In the past, we have made several requests to the Office of the Auditor General to audit our systems as we have nothing to hide.
Second, the government itself is guilty of contributing to this financial mismanagement it talks about.
Citizens would recall that, in January 2023 a contract was awarded to Square Commodities Construction Company by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), to replace the door to the Princes Street Sluice (a council facility) without notice to or consultation with the City Engineer or the Council. The work was poorly executed. This resulted in flooding of sections of Charlestown and Albouystown. There was no investigation into the incident by NDIA. No one was sanctioned. Taxpayers’ dollars were wasted. That was not only mismanagement but also misconduct, on the part of the government.
Since that time, with fragrant disregard for local democracy, the government has been awarding contracts for the execution of works on city facilities- waterways, pavements, roads, bridges and avenues- without any reference to the council. We are happy for the assistance but government’s approach is wrong and even unlawful.
Again, on the question of the purchase of the compactor. Those eleven councillors named in the letter are aware, participated in the debates and voted against the compactors and that was only a few statutory meetings ago. The Council took a decision and recommended that the Solid Waste Director and responsible officer, who has other allegations pending, be disciplined. That recommendation was sent to the Local Government Commission. Many weeks after that recommendation was dispatched to the commission, it sent a letter suspending that officer. However, a few days after that, the commission withdrew that letter of suspension; the officer is still on the job. This is a serious point because the Local Government Commission (LGC) on which the government has a majority, has not been even-handed in its treatment of officers and workers at the council. This is a fact that is well known among officers. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why officers have been opting for early retirement and others resigning from the employ of the council with alacrity.
The Local Government Commission Act of 2013 has conferred powers on the Commission to deal with all staffing and related matters; the council can only recommend. The commission has the authority to approve or disapprove our recommendations. This brings me to the issue of the position of City Treasurer. When it came to the notice of the council that the former Acting City Treasurer had requested early retirement, the council took a decision on filling that position, on a temporary basis, until the position is properly advertised and filled. A recommendation was made to the Local Government Commission; it was rejected without explanation. The Commission is putting whomever, whenever it wants in very critical senior positions without any care about skill sets, competencies and the human resources needs of the council. This again is without intimate knowledge of the working of council. It behaves and acts as a parallel council! It does not consult with the city council but sends letters of appointment to officers based on its own whimsical and capricious views. In most cases, the individuals appointed are not even interviewed by the commission or council; they are just appointed. The Minister of Local Government and Regional Development has been involved in instructing staff at the council. He has been writing directly to staff. The most recent example was his instruction to the Town Clerk to disregard a decision of the council. I shall deal with this matter in a subsequent report to citizens. But citizens should know that all departments of the city council are working way below their required staff strength. This is affecting our ability to provide services to citizens.
Finally, on the question of finance, it is important to for me to remind citizens that in 1994, the PPP/C appointed Interim Management Committee (IMC) Chaired by Dr. James Rose after careful analysis concluded that the council’s revenue base was too narrow to meet increasing demands of the city. More than two decades after nothing has changed. The council does not have the wherewithal to provide for the increasing needs of the city and when we create attempts to advance our revenue collection Central Government seeks to interfere with the process. The emerging oil and gas industry has made it more difficult for the council to keep pace with growing demands for better services.
Yet, in the face of this, the government has refused to pay its taxes to the council. If the government pays its taxes then the council would have the resources to provide vital municipal services to local communities. We are not requesting bailouts or seeking to get government to do our work; we are asking the government to pay what is due to the council. The government is setting a bad example to the private sector and property-owners. This is making it difficult for the council to honour its financial obligations to its staff, contractors and other agencies such as the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). I believe that the first moral and fiduciary duty of the 11 PPP/C City Councillors is to persuade the government to pay its taxes to the council in which they serve. If they merely cannot do that, then what is the point about their talking about anything else.
Yours sincerely,
Alfred Mentore
Mayor of Georgetown.
