There is no place like M&CC for the holidays

Dear Editor,
In 1959, Perry Como made popular a song called “There’s no place like home for the holidays”, that is commonly associated with the Christmas season. In Georgetown in 2017, I think this song should be rewritten and called “There is no place like the City Council for the holidays.”
All year, the Council workers had to live a beggarly life pleading with their landlords, the furniture stores and other creditors as their salaries are always paid very late each month even when Guyana celebrated its Jubilee celebrations last year, but to have to do this at Christmas time is just too much to ask.
But to add salt to an already gaping wound, the finance chairman has suggested that the municipality consider downsizing the number of these very battered staff members, since salaries account for 68 per cent of the Council’s revenue.
He does not suggest that the ‘Fantastic Four’ put a freeze on their frequent travel that is costing the city millions of dollars almost every month; he does not suggest letting go of the contractors that are costing the city tens of millions of dollars each month (and I am not referring to the garbage contractors); he does not suggest that they stop buying sports utility vehicles for the highfalutin at City Hall; he does not suggest that they cut back on expensive retreats, fancy dinners and profligate use of cellphones and the making of overseas calls and the attachment of bodyguards. He does not mention the guards, gardeners and drivers that are provided by the Council to a former Mayor. Instead he suggests that the poor workers take the fall. How cruel.
To justify his callous approach, he then makes reference to the salaries received by two low-level positions; for example, an Office Assistant and a Clerk 2 General and a mid-level position such as the Accountant but keeps studiously away from mentioning the heads of departments and sections and other top tier positions, many of whom receive hundreds of thousands of dollars each month, but whom he will never fire as they are seen as kith and kin.
Persons have been complaining in the press for two and a half years now about the featherbedding at the Council, where nearly two hundred family members, friends, church pals and paramours have been hired to top flight positions – many recently created and sectional heads made into departmental heads after their sections were inflated into large useless departments, but no one listened and now suddenly the Finance Chairman has an epiphany.
At least the Madam Mayor is not so insensitive and duplicitous, as she knows that downsizing would mean many relatives and friends getting pink slips.

Best regards,
Sambu Jacobus