As the well-advertised one-hour, peaceful and lawful protest against the City Hall-imposed parking meter contract got underway on Friday, it unexpectedly encountered a counter-protest organised by the two parties to the contract – City Hall and Smart City Solutions. Citizens have a constitutional right to make their views known about actions of their Governments, when they believe the power they have conferred on that entity is being abused. But only in Guyana, do we find governments arrogant enough to counter-protest against the citizenry.
We also witnessed this shocking anomaly when the Ministry of the Presidency counter-protested a peaceful candlelight vigil by the lessees of Red House, who felt they were being wrongfully evicted by the Central Government. These governmental counter-protests betray, at best, a fundamental misapprehension of the power relations between the governors and the governed in a democracy, and at worse, an authoritarian mind-set peacefully. This fundamental right of citizens in a democracy to protest arises out of the social contract they made with the Leviathan they created, and all Guyanese must now protest the refusal of both the Central and City Governments to adhere to its tenets.
But the counter-protest by City Hall and Smart City – which, as with the one at Red House, inevitably precipitated heated tempers – becomes even more outrageous when the protested contract and the circumstances of its formation, are examined. These, unlike the misdirection the Town Clerk is introducing, about citizens opposing parking meters and “modernisation”, are the issues.
Most germanely, the contract with Smart City was conducted in secret by the Mayor, the Town Clerk and two close associates when they were flown out to Latin America by the meter provider. This act alone was enough to set off alarm bells, without the latter’s obdurate refusal of the Mayoral inner circle to share the contract with other Councillors. Even at this stage, when the meters have already been rolled out, the citizens of this country have not been made aware of the terms of the contract. The excuse offered time and again by the Town Clerk that to do so would in effect be to betray “commercial secrets” is not only risible, but contemptuous of the intelligence of the Guyanese people. What secrets could there possibly be in the positioning of some used parking meters on the streets of a decrepit third world city?
But we know from the bitter experience of other cities like Chicago, the danger of being fleeced for decades when parking is privatised via a “secret contract”. In the case of Chicago, back in 2008, the city was caught in a cash crunch and sold its revenue stream over 75 years from its parking meters for an up-front payment of US.2 billion. There were no public hearings, and the aldermen never saw the bid documents. Here in Guyana, we did not even get an up-front payment, but will give more than three-quarters of the revenue – 80 per cent actually for over 20 years – to the contractor. And we don’t even know what happens then: will the City have to pay the aptly named Smart City for its meters and “technology”?
The devil, the successor Mayor and other Chicagoans found out the details of the contract. An audit revealed that the contract was worth US billion more. How much more of the revenues should we have received? 50/50? The price of parking was soon quadrupled in Chicago. When City Hall sponsors events – along the lines of the Main Street Lime and Mashramani Float Parade – the Contractor had to be reimbursed for “lost revenues”. Chicago was also billed for allowing the construction of new private garages. Was a similar clause the reason why Teleperformance was harassed over its new parking lot here?
While the rates charged for parking by Smart City is too high, the protest must go beyond demanding a moratorium on, or lowering of, those rates. They must demand a release of the contract.
