Dear Editor,
Once again, the Georgetown Municipality is in the news and once more for the most dishonourable and ignominious reasons. This time the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) has been called in to investigate a conspiracy allegedly involving staffers of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, some Councillors and a contractor, to defraud the city of well over a hundred million dollars.
As the story goes, a contractor who was hired way back in 2015 to execute works such as weeding parapets, raking up debris, desilting alleyways and street drains, clearing empty lots, cutting down trees, and painting tree trunks and lanterns was found to be attempting to double dip. And this is for no small change but rather a whopping 127 million dollars.
A number of glaring questions immediately come to mind which I hope that SOCU will be asking of them.
First, were these works that were purportedly done, approved by the council, prior to them being executed?
Second, were these works budgeted for by the council?
Third, why are these works not being done by the nearly 1000-strong workforce of the municipality instead of being farmed out for exorbitant sums?
Fourth, why did the council’s internal auditor and the internal audit department fail to detect these and so many other scams within the council? What are they being paid for?
Fifth, why is the present council pressing for an additional 25% to be paid urgently when the contractor was already paid?
Sixth, is this the only contractor seeking to double dip? Or are there more?
But the big question is, when will this nonsense come to an end? When will the residents be relieved of this albatross around their necks? Will this latest scam see the prosecution of anyone or will it be swept under the carpet like so many others that we have heard of? When will there be a thorough and comprehensive audit of the Georgetown City Council be carried out? We keep asking for audits in the oil and gas industry, why not of the capital city of Guyana?
With thanks,
Riley Matthews
