Local Govt in Georgetown is more akin to Comedy Central

Dear Editor,
In cities around the world, Local Government is serious business, but here in Georgetown, it is more akin to Comedy Central with innumerable humourous stories emanating out of that old fairytale-like castle which we call City Hall. What has been going on at City Hall since Independence and which continues to go on reminds one of the old “Carry On” series of British comedy motion pictures where the humour was just ridiculous.
I think we must have broken another record for being the first city around the globe to have its Mayor’s Office so easily broken into and important documents simply carted off under the noses of the City Police Department.
Of course, the smallest child would realise that this is a special thief or thieves and no ordinary criminal who was hardly interested in the valuable items contained in the Mayor’s Office but whose interest, it was reported, was to retrieve files that contained information about the Commission of Inquiry that was undertaken upon the request of the Local Government Commission which contains damning, incriminating and felonious information and details regarding some major players at City Hall.
A question to be asked is why? When almost every little cake shop in town has security cameras to enhance their safety and security, why does City Hall have none? Financial constraints are a non-issue as this equipment has become very inexpensive, so then was this defect deliberate? Surely this is another first for capital cities internationally.
But the bigger question to be asked is where was the City Constabulary? This is where the headquarters of the City Constabulary is located, not an outpost, not a police station and not a municipal location where a rank is posted to protect the property, but the control centre, the head office, the nerve centre of the City Police. Where their armoury is, where their lockups are located, where their duty officers are, and a thief or thieves casually saunters into City Hall’s compound, breaks into the Mayor’s Office, takes whatever he or she wishes, and saunters back out undetected? Unbelievable.
I hope this serves as a wake-up call to the Mayor, as to the nest of vipers that he is operating within. The deceitfulness, treachery and savagery that surrounds him are incredible. How did this thief or thieves know of the existence of these files in the Mayor’s Office, how did they know where in the Mayor’s Office to find it? How did they know of the most vulnerable area to break in through?
If the Mayor is serious about advancing his agenda and if he is serious about improving the living and working conditions within our garden city, then he must do two things, first he needs to remove all those who closely surround him presently, who come from the old guard and whom he inherited from his predecessors, and replace them with persons who would be honest and loyal to him and second, he needs to turn all those who were fingered in wrongdoings in the CoI and their matters over to the police for investigating. As they say here in Guyana “Cow deh a pasture he nah remember seh dog and butcher deh till he see am”.
Finally, I would like to suggest that he changes from the current statutory and routine audit that the Audit Office of Guyana is currently unsuccessfully trying to undertake and summon a number of private audit companies in and order a full forensic audit to be undertaken of the Council’s books.
Someone or some persons have something to hide at City Hall and it seems as though they are willing to stop at nothing to achieve this. Additionally, the ghosts of the old ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ of City Hall seem to be still very much there and haunting City Hall with an invisible hand.

Sincerely,
Roseanne Rodgers