Dear Editor,
Unfortunately, it seems that there is never any good news, uplifting information or stimulating reports emanating from the Georgetown municipality, instead there are only advisories about increased taxation, threats of punitive actions against citizens and measures to stifle entrepreneurship.
Most recent of all we learnt of the intention of the municipality to seek an increase in the already costly fines of ,000 which have to be paid for littering. This is in addition to the whopping 10 per cent increase in property taxes for residences and businesses in Georgetown. Then came the bad news of having to pay for parking and for containers offloading in the city. Vendors on the Merriman Mall were forced to pay five times more to rent what has been described as ‘dog kennels’.
While all of these increases have been effected, the services being provided have never been worse. The city floods after just a few hours of rain, persons are robbed on a daily basis in and around the markets, animals are slaughtered in a most inhumane and insanitary way at the municipal abattoir, staff at the municipal stores in Water Street are forced to sit all day in a poorly lit and unventilated room while enduring a constant drip from the toilet facilities located on the floor above.
Most of the buildings from City Hall to the Solid Waste Building to the South Road Health Centre are all in a derelict state, all of their garbage trucks and other machinery such as street sweepers, loaders, bulldozers, backhoes, tractors, etc, are all in utter disrepair.
In the midst of all of the bedlam and turmoil the Council is seeking to deprive vendors who sell chicken outside of the markets of their livelihoods, have cruelly forced other vendors into a squalid facility that they have the audacity to call ‘Parliament View Mall’, have put some hair stylists under some rickety tents on the Merriman Mall, all of whom are catching hell during this rainy season and paying their workers late every month.
If the President is serious about the provision of ‘a good life for all Guyanese’ which of course include the citizens of Georgetown, then he must order the commissioning of an inquiry into the operations of the Council, ordering of a forensic audit regarding its financial malfeasance and the removal of the incompetent and corrupt senior administrators at City Hall.
Sincerely,
Nadine Jerrick
