Many facilities in the different constituencies in the city that are in need of immediate attention have been
Deputy Town Clerk (ag), Sharon Harry
sidelined owing to the financial difficulties encountered by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), according to the Deputy Town Clerk (ag).
The disclosure was made at a statutory meeting, held on Monday, after Councillors questioned why there was a delay in rehabilitating the various market places and the Charlestown Daycare, which was in a hazardous state, as well as other facilities.
“The Charlestown Daycare’s poor lighting facility, a defective guard hut, gate and fence need repairing. Since April 1, we’ve been receiving these reports, and it’s the same thing over and over,” Councillor Malcolm Ferreira stated.
Deputy Town Clerk (ag), Sharron Harry responded that she was aware of the many problems at the various facilities which needed to be rectified, highlighting that the work was being done in phases based on importance.
“You would notice from time to time we will have some matters reoccurring and as the Town Clerk would have reported previously, there are several matters and in every section and department of Council, we have issues and what we’re looking at characterising those issues. There’s so many that we may not be able to address all simultaneously, but what we are doing is addressing them in phases,” she explained.
However, this explanation did not sit well with many of the Councillors.
“Now we hearing that things worse than this are being looked after, so this [daycare restoration] is less important so I want to know two things: what is worse, and why it’s not this?” Ferreira questioned.
It was then that Harry tried to explain again, and disclosed that owing to the Mayor and City Council being low on funds, the restoration of many buildings and rectification of many issues were postponed.
“All our facilities are important to us. We would like to look at all of those facilities like yesterday. But unfortunately finances within the Council does not allow it,” she elucidated.
After claims of City Hall being bankrupt surfaced in May of this year, Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase Green had confirmed last month that the municipality had indeed run short on funds.
In a telephone interview with Guyana Times, at the time, Chase Green said that for the M&CC to be able to run the city efficiently and cater for all the modern developments, it would require approximately $3 billion annually. She highlighted that since many persons did not pay their taxes on time and the M&CC did not collect enough funds, deficits were encountered annually.
Additionally, the Mayor had indicated then that all indebtedness would be discussed by the financial committee and the matter was hoped to be resolved soon.
