NA Council says RDC must apply to extend schools, new bridges

Vice Chairman of Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), Dennis DeRoop, is accusing the New Amsterdam Town Council of using the Regional Administration conveniently. His comments came as he addressed the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) late last week.
DeRoop was at the time responding to a request by the New Amsterdam Town Council for the administration to apply to the Council for permission to undertake any work in the township. He noted that recently there was a tree at the Esplanade Park where Africanised bees had begun building a hive.
“It is the responsibility of the municipality to deal with it,” he stated.
The Vice Chairman informed the RDC that the regional engineer had to write to the Town Council seeking permission to be able to get someone to capture the bees.
“They should be asking us to help but instead we had to write them to get permission to get rid of bees in the town… When the job was finished and the contractor cut down the tree and everything, the whole Municipality was there fighting down the contractor for the wood… they are using the region conveniently,” DeRoop said.
Earlier the New Amsterdam Municipality had sought by way of a correspondence to impose that the Town Council be allowed to give approval for any work to be carried out in the town on infrastructure and Government buildings. The Council is also seeking to have the regional administration pay an application fee when applying for permission.
According to the Vice Chairman, “If the municipality wants the region to assist with cleaning the drains and canals, they shouldn’t say it is our responsibility; they should write the region and ask for help.”
DeRoop noted that the municipality of Georgetown does not ask the Central Government to seek permission in writing before they carry out any developmental projects in the city.
“The Government has to write the Municipality of New Amsterdam to repair a road or to build a bridge in New Amsterdam or the Ministry of Education has to write the Municipality of New Amsterdam to get permission to extend a school and have to pay money to get the plan passed. This is just a bottleneck hindering development.
This is a serious matter and we need to communicate directly with the PS [Permanent Secretary] on this issue to have it resolved and this will only hamper development and create further bottlenecks in the process.”
Regional Chairman David Armogan quoted Finance Minister Winston Jordan, saying money is not being circulated and regional administrations need to spend the money which has been budgeted to them and award contracts.
Armogan explained that what the New Amsterdam Municipality is seeking to do is to stagnate development; a process which will see the administration not being able to execute all of the proposed contracts in the town of New Amsterdam.
According to DeRoop, what the municipality is attempting to do will further hamper any development in the New Amsterdam/East Canje Area since million which is paid as wages to Guyana Sugar Corporation employees will be taken away from the economy with the closure of the Rose Hall Estate. “I foresee a major disaster when that happens,” the Vice Chairman added. (Andrew Carmichael)