By Ryhaan Shah
A decision to install parking meters in a city would appear an innocuous issue except that ours in Georgetown has become mired in scandal, suspicions of fraud, and bears the hallmarks of highhandedness, all of which are signature elements of the Granger Government.
There was no public consultation on installing the meters and had there been one, the vital question would have been: Why?
Parking meters are used in large, congested cities worldwide to dissuade drivers from using their vehicles. In these cities, there are ready alternatives. Besides fleets of taxis, there are good public transportation systems of buses, subways and trains.
In Guyana, besides taxis, the only alternative are minibuses which are often overcrowded, rush about our roadways recklessly and put everyone’s lives at risk. It therefore makes sense for those who can to own and drive their own vehicles.
There are some parking issues in the city centre but empty lots can be leased by the M&CC and drivers charged a nominal fee for parking to cover the rental cost.
No Caribbean city uses parking meters and in a small city like Georgetown, creating cycling lanes would make better sense. Encouraging people to bicycle into and around the city would ease traffic congestion, fit in with our greening strategy, and make for a healthier and fitter citizenry which would translate into less sick days and less stress on our medical services. That’s a win-win-win-win-win situation. The benefits would far outweigh the initial cost.
Also, Government is thinking about raising bridge crossing fees, drivers licence fees and vehicle fitness fees so drivers are already paying more to use our roadways. These increased fees are already “burdensome” to use President David Granger’s word and since Guyana hardly tops the region as being economically progressive, the population is already hard pressed to make ends meet.
Investigations into the companies selected by the Mayor and City Council to install the meters reveals neither Smart City Solutions Inc nor National Parking Systems existed on the worldwide web before April last which, suspiciously, coincided with the time that there were fresh discussions on the meters’ installation.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no business sense in anyone signing a contract with a company before investigating their product as was done by the M&CC. Had they not done this, they said, their tour to Mexico would not have been paid for by the company! Duh!
The signed contract, according to Mayor Patricia Chase Green, is a “private document of the administration”. How and when does the use of ratepayers’ monies ever become private business?
This reads like a Hollywood script for a comedy in a banana republic about greedy and corrupt politicians in which, swaggering back from their all-expenses-paid trip to Mexico, one official says to the media, “I have no apologies to make; I getting like Harmon.”
Except that this is not fiction but fact. Those words uttered by Chairman of the M&CC’s Finance Committee and People’s National Congress (PNC) stalwart Oscar Clarke are chilling and return us to the days of Burnham’s excesses.
No one expects the review of the contract being undertaken by Clarke’s PNC comrades Attorney General Basil Williams and Finance Minister Winston Jordan to amount to anything but a rubber stamp of approval.
It appears that the lack of accountability, transparency and responsibility with public finances is a policy of the Granger Government, including at the local government level where elected PNC/A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) officials are using their authority to push through decisions by whatever means necessary.
Deputy Mayor Sherrod Duncan of the Alliance For Change minced no words when he said of the M&CC’s behaviour that “such levels of arrogance are not only nauseating and sickening but places Guyana right back to the days of executive thuggery”.
The PNC has learned everything from its past of party paramountcy and thuggery, that very past that they wanted the electorate to put aside and forget when they cast their ballots at last year’s general elections.
Whereas this should be a straight case about the citizenry insisting on integrity and honesty from our public officials, it will descend into being just another example of partisan politics where PNC hardliners will continue to behave with arrogance because it is the party’s culture as learned from their maximum leader Forbes Burnham who they continue to praise and shower with awards.
It is from this point that tyranny arises. The disappointment with the Granger Government is absolute and the citizenry must support the Deputy Mayor and every right-minded City Councillor on this issue and reject the attempts to foist a project onto the city that reeks of corruption.
