Dear Editor
Once again, the Georgetown Municipality has put forward a most uninspiring, unimaginative and impractical budget for 2021. This is not surprising as those presenting the estimates of income and expenditure represent a bygone era.
The first question to be asked is why the budget for this year is being prepared and presented in the middle of the year. What were they doing for the first half of the year? Living on borrowed, unregulated and non-budgeted funds. Of course the pandemic will be used as a puerile excuse
Quite disappointingly, the high points of this two and a half billion dollar budget were the proposed collection if a $100 fee per week per household for refuse collection and the downsizing of its staff. Whilst municipalities all across the globe are working to push the boundaries on what it means to become a modern city, the Council is patting itself on the back for planning to buy a few garbage trucks. Cities are using their forward-thinking and innovative efforts in technology, architecture, city planning, and social issues to become a model of modernity, Georgetown is instead waiting on handouts from central government and moaning when they don’t get it on time or with the rapidity that they expect.
With Guyana on the cusp of economic transformation, with the discovery of large amounts of oil discovered offshore Guyana everyone (with the exception of the City Council) knows that they will see in the next five years an explosion of housing, construction and the foundation being laid for manufacturing and industrial development in and around Georgetown. The Council should be mindful of its own role as a partner in national development and fashion a stronger, more business and investor-friendly budget.
In terms of its proposal to downsize its staff, one can only hope that the ‘Fat Cats’ will be the first to go and not the poor sanitation workers, day care staff, security guards and janitors. Over the last six years, a tremendous amount of featherbedding was done with the creation of a lot of fancy positions with super salaries and huge allowances. These persons just attend a lot of meetings, eat a lot of food but hardly do any real work. The discrepancy between the number of productive employees and the indolent bloated managerial staff is what needs to be addressed. As they say All Chiefs, not enough warriors. Just look at the new Human Resources Department which was a small Personnel Section up until a few years ago being allocated a whopping four hundred and thirty-five million dollars.
And finally, someone at City Hall realizes that it is more economically viable to carry out the garbage collection and disposal services themselves. This is however after literally throwing billions of dollars down the drain contracting out these services. It should be noted however up until the 1990s the Council had its own equipment to manage the garbage collection and disposal service, Incinerator and landfill sites. This is until some Brainiac came along and decided to fill people’s pockets at the expense of the citizenry.
The idea to charge the one hundred dollar per week per household would not only be double dipping but would be downright illegal as charges for solid waste management are already included in the property rates citizens have to pay to the Council. And so what happens if someone refuses to pay this extra charge will their refuse not be collected?
It is time that Georgetown our capital city moves to the forefront of innovation, shiny skyscrapers are being incorporated into this old city. Georgetown needs to stride toward becoming a new modern city with technological advancements, social progress, and modern Guyanese architecture.
Sincerely,
Jermain Johnson
