New Market St vendors: City Hall allowed situation to deteriorate to crisis before Govt intervened – VP Jagdeo

Clearing encumbrances and vendors from outside the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on New Market Street, is just one of the several responsibilities of City Hall that Central Government has been forced to shoulder.
This is according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, who noted in a recent interview that City Hall neglected its responsibilities despite successive hospital Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) appealing to them for help with the vendors, until it reached crisis levels and the Government was forced to step in to remove the vendors – a move that Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine resisted.

“Coming back to what the Mayor said, he is responsible. The Government took over his responsibility to remove the vendors. Because from 2015, they were more interested in collecting money illegally from vendors than cleaning up the city of Georgetown.”
“Georgetown Hospital, from 2015, there were a few vendors there. Every CEO of the hospital, under the PPP from Mike Khan, to the last one who was there. Two CEOs under APNU in the five years, wrote the City Council about this problem. So, it’s not just the PPP that complained about it or PPP administrations of the Georgetown Hospital. But you’re blocking the entrance to the main hospital. People have to go through there, ambulances, taxis, etc.”
According to Jagdeo, instead of helping the situation, the Opposition saw it as an opportunity to protest and stir up trouble. The Vice President noted that while the Government supports vendors, it must be done in a legal manner.
“We will support vending across the country, once people want to start a small business. But as a vendor, you can’t do it to discomfort other people or to prevent some vital function of the places you’re vending in. You have to do it in a responsible manner. And you would get the full support of the PPP Government. Because we believe that everyone should earn a living.”

“We had five Christmases from 2015. And they couldn’t find an opportune time. It’s not a now (issue). It’s actually seven years now, this has been going on. It’s becoming a crisis, even more so now because of the Christmas season. The ambulances can’t pass at all. Because you have congregations of people there,” Jagdeo said.

Accountability
Jagdeo further noted that the “cabal” at City Hall has a poor track record of accounting for money they get from Central Government. According to him, City Hall’s lack of accountability is part of the reason why Central Government has been forced to take on more responsibility in the city.
“The taxpayers of this country must sit down every year and hand City Council billions of dollars. They collect all the revenue from the city, which runs into billions too, and spend it on themselves. And we must then take additional taxpayers’ money, give it to them and then they can’t account for it. That’s the logic.”
“They do get a subvention. A substantial subvention every year. Adequacy is based on their perception. But that is why we look at the total spending in the city. If we hand the money to them to do a single road, they would spend every cent of the money and the road would never be built,” Jagdeo said.
According to Jagdeo, the Government has had this very experience with City Hall before, whereby money was given to them to fix Kitty and Stabroek Markets. The Vice President noted that at the end of the year, City Hall had used the money for something else and the markets still weren’t fixed.
“The responsibility for roads is the city. The responsibility for drainage is those of the city. The responsibility for garbage collections is that of the city. The council there, the PNC council, has not been fixing roads in the city for the last 15 years. Every road you can drive on in the city has been fixed, billions of dollars, by the Central Government,” the VP said.
Jagdeo pointed out that Central Government has also fixed the outfalls and the drainage systems in the city. Additionally, traffic lights have been installed. He noted that Central Government has spent billions on infrastructure in the city, taking on responsibilities that rightfully belong to City Hall.
Mayor Narine is presently before the courts on charges related to certain remarks he made while protesting the removal of the vendors from the positions they occupied in front of GPHC at New Market Street in Georgetown last week.
Backed by the vendors, Mayor Narine lay on the roadway to prevent trucks from carrying away the vendors’ food caravans and stalls. He then descended into making a series of serious accusations against President Dr Irfaan Ali, including that the Head of State is creating an Islamic State in Guyana. (G3)