Guyana’s Head of State is coming in for high praise for his decision to make impromptu visits to sluices and pumps in Georgetown. The unannounced visits came as the city was under several inches of water causing much discomfort and losses for citizens. But more surprisingly, even as citizens battled the floodwaters, the City’s Mayor nor his Council made an effort to ensure that drainage facilities and equipment are functioning but rather the President, Dr Irfaan Ali instead discovered several pump attendants napping, with the equipment needed to drain the city of floodwaters turned off.
This comes even as Central Government has been trying to mend its differences with the always cash-strapped the Mayor and City Council (M&CC). Also, this comes on the heels of Central Government giving City Hall $30 million with a pledge of a further $100 million.
The constant lacking of finances by the M&CC is hardly surprising as, over the years, this entity has always been cash-strapped and mismanaged.
This newspaper has previously said that the M&CC not only owes garbage collection contractors, but also the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). Of great concern is its lack of payment to NIS. This means that the M&CC has put the employees’ benefits and entitlements at risk because of missing contributions. Also, of great concern is: why did NIS tolerate M&CC’s unlawful act? Year after year, City Hall has come in for heavy criticism over the management of its finances.
Just last week, Local Government and Regional Development Minister Nigel Dharamlall spoke of the issue of accountability and lack of transparency and mismanagement of funds at the M&CC.
Last year, the Local Government Minister had accused City Hall of “gross incompetence and mismanagement”. According to the Minister, the only thing that has been done in a year, despite $65 million being provided to City Hall to construct the admin building, was a design review of the structure that ought to be built.
It could be recalled also that the M&CC and then the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government had embarked on a massive citywide clean-up campaign in Georgetown and its environs.
While these efforts produced fairly good results regarding the general appearance of the city and its environs, the then political Opposition at the time, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and other stakeholders had raised questions in relation to the contracts awarded to carry out the works. However, in spite of concerns that were raised about accountability and transparency, no effort was made to provide clarity to the public in relation to the sums expended and the beneficiaries of the contracts.
Again, year after year, there have been calls for a forensic audit to be carried out into the operations of City Hall. These calls continue to reverberate in the interest of transparency and accountability of public funds.
This publication has previously called for and will continue to call for such an audit, as in addition to determining to what extent public funds are being expended in a transparent and efficient manner, it would also seek to examine the tax collecting system to determine if the allegations of dishonesty, deficiency, and discrepancies have any merit.
The Government certainly cannot keep pumping tax dollars into the operations of City Hall without putting the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that public monies are accounted for.
Perhaps, a reason why the M&CC seems to think that it can always depend on Central Government for a bailout is because it is under no pressure to perform. The leniency that has been afforded the Council must stop if there is to be any improvements at City Hall.
We support President Ali when he said on Sunday that there were no excuses for the irresponsibility displayed by the M&CC and its staff who neglected their duties causing major flooding in the city.
