Is M&CC the most profligate municipality in the world?

Dear Editor,

The Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown (M&CC) must have, by now, attained an achievement that could be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records – their being the most profligate municipality in the world.

 The Council has, over the last several months, created scores of new positions at the senior management level, whilst filling many other senior positions that had become vacant but were deliberately not being filled as an act of fiscal restraint and due to the lack of necessity for them.

 Could someone say why the Town Clerk’s Office needs a town clerk, a deputy town clerk and two assistant town clerks? In the past, when the City was properly managed, they had no assistant town clerks.

Why does the City Engineer’s Department need seven engineers on the staff whilst the City continues to flood, the roads are filled with holes, and bridges collapse everywhere?

Why do they need a Public Relations Section staffed with so many persons, when the image and reputation of Georgetown continues to be at its lowest ebb?

Why do senior functionaries need bodyguards? Are they afraid of being robbed of their wealth? Why does the Council need to create a Human Resources Department, when the Personnel Section they had was notoriously underperforming and was underutilised? This section was capriciously upgraded from a section to a department. Of course, everyone within that section, starting with the head, was catapulted up the salary scales with fancy and important sounding titles. Then many new positions were added with these positions, carrying with them super salaries, allowances, and many other perks.

Of course there has been no improvement in the management or motivation of Council’s human resources, as these persons were not given the tools and, in many instances, lack the competence to perform. So they are just enjoying the ride of their lives off the backs of the citizens.

 Another archetypal instance is the upgrading of the Municipal Cleansing Section — a section that came under the Public Health Department; that had responsibility for managing the incinerator, several landfill sites around the City, and the entire process of refuse collection in the City though its own fleet of garbage trucks, graders, etc — to the Solid Waste Department, with a lot of fancy sounding positions whilst at the same time outsourcing more than 90 percent of refuse collection in the city, closing down the Incinerator, ‘Old Smokey,’ and giving up responsibility for managing landfill sites. It is totally amazing!

The irony of this situation is that in years gone by — when they had fewer fancy departments; less highly paid managers and directors; no public relations section; senior staffers who did not have chauffeurs, bodyguards or sports utility vehicles to drive around in and to drop their children to school and do families’ shopping; no cutting-edge, all-expenses-paid cellular phones; none of the many overseas training opportunities and first class trips abroad, which they currently enjoy — Georgetown was the Garden City of the Caribbean. It was immaculate, with smooth roads, working streetlights, clean drains that children played in, good sanitation, and proper security in the markets, etc.

 Today, with all of that reckless and uncontrolled spending on themselves, the City stinks! There are junkies and thieves everywhere, the municipal markets have the largest rodents in the world, the drains are clogged with weeds and unmentionables, animals are bludgeoned to death at the abattoir, the Stabroek Market wharf has collapsed, the Kitty Market is still to be completed, the City Hall building looks like a deserted haunted castle, the Merriman’s Mall has become a shantytown, and visiting the cemetery is akin to going on an exotic safari trip. It is all such a mess!

Sincerely

Sean Levius