Dear Editor,
I would like someone in the Georgetown Municipality to tell me why I should be paying property rates, let alone proposed increases, when very little, if any, services are being given or provided by the municipality to the citizenry.
They are supposed to maintain in good order the approximately 645-mile drainage network necessary for effectual drainage in the city. They don’t even service a half; citizens have to weed their own parapets and dig their own drains.
They are supposed to eradicate mosquito breeding in the city, particularly in the approximately 103 miles of alleyways; but this is not done. The Ministry of Public Health has to do defogging in the city.
They are supposed to maintain in good condition the approximately 311 miles of roads, and ensure that all main roads and streets are free from pot-holes, depressions, slippage, etc. They do no such thing, but sit and await the Government to take care of all of the roads in the city.
They are required to provide the 42,000 properties in the city with refuse collection service by removing waste regularly in the city’s 10 collection zones. They are instead proposing to charge an extra fee for that service.
They are required to provide early childhood development services to children in the city, catering to their total development. Instead, they are closing their day care centres.
They are required to produce audited financial statements each year, and have them published. They never do; at least they never did in the last 20 years.
The main goal of the Council should be to provide core services to the more-than 180,000 citizens of Georgetown, not just tax them out of their brains, and lavishly spend the money on themselves.
With thanks,
Riley Matthews
