Dear Editor,
Please refer to a full page advertisement, which was published in your Stabroek News issue of Thursday, December 28, 2006 – Facts Every Citizen Should Know About The Georgetown Municipality – The Sorry State of Affairs, p 14, by Mayor Hamilton Green. We regret that this advertisement has reached your newspaper without it first being examined by the administration or the council. This should have been done since: (i) the City Treasurer paid a substantial amount to have it published, (ii) administration is forced to spend nonproductive time on a negative event, and (iii) the Municipal District and Coun-cils Act, Chapter 28:01 makes it clear that the Town Clerk is accountable to the council for the work of the municipality. According to this law: “The clerk shall be the chief administrative officer of the council of which he is the clerk and shall have the general responsibility of coordinating the whole work of the council.” Under this very law, the Town Clerk has responsibility for the general correspondence of the council.
We are aware that His Worship has the right to make public statements on the work of the council. However, such statements should be reasonable, accurate and fair. These values are absolutely important in a situation, such as the one on hand, where employees are likely to be seriously affected. Employees bear the identity of the organization. Their performance could affect the reputation of the entity. Therefore, what management says about them and how it is said are important to the image of the organization. Image influences public confidence. This in turn shapes the performance of the council.
Even more perplexing is the fact that the advertisemsent has the potential to further damage the image of the municipality. No organization or entity would publish an advertisement or any information that would destroy its image or reputation. It just does not make good organizational sense, let alone a public entity such as the City Council that relies on the support and trust of the public for its sustainability and success.
Worse, the advertisement itself contains many factual errors and inaccuracies. Even if we were willing to turn a blind eye to these inaccuracies, we are constrained by the strictness of the law which governs the operations of council. The municipality could be seen as a negotiated set of interaction patterns among different status, occupational groupings and departments. The Municipal and District Councils Act, Chapter 28:01 allows for these interactions but also determines the context for them. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the council to address any issue or situation that falls outside the context of the Act. It is against this background, we respectfully seek to address this issue.
The advertisement appears to have been conceptualized to speak to two areas of the council’s relations – the central government and the administration. However, in this letter we should like to confine our concerns to a few of the inaccuracies on the work of the administration.
First, in the 3rd column and 2nd paragraph, the advertisement states: “For years the Mayor has pleaded with the powers that be to deal with corruption and sheer lawlessness by a City administration that has become audacious and untouchable. The connection between the government and City Hall’s top brass is now evident.” We regret, we could not agree with this statement because it is inaccurate. In fact, we believe that such a statement is unfounded and therefore unfair. Some of our workers may have been involved in inappropriate behavior. The council’s workforce is comprised of more than a thousand employees because we are a labour intensive organization. Workers will be tempted to do the wrong things and indulge in unethical practices. This is not unique to city hall; all organizations experience these unfortunate situations in the course of their operations and activities. This is not an excuse but a reason for the administration to work on areas, which provide opportunities for such shortcoming and to enforce the organizational rules which deal with misconduct in its various departments.
Still, this does not give His Worship the right to make such negative sweeping statements about the administration. Again, such statements are likely to have a two-fold impact on employees as well as the public. In the first place, such statements are likely to affect the morale of the council’s officers because it has the potential to undermine their integrity, credibility, professional reputation, and authority. This compromises their ability to enforce the municipal regulations and the law in their official assignments in the city. Therefore, it encourages people to disregard the work and consequently the authority of crucial officers in the system. Second, it is likely to erode public confidence, trust and support for the work of the municipality. These combine with a highly politicized council, in which workers are called to do their jobs, to impinge upon the overall performance of council. Therefore, such statements have serious ramifications for the development of the city.
In the same paragraph, His Worship seeks to find a connection between senior officers and the government. However, the Municipal and District Councils Act Chapter 28:01 establishes that link between Officers and the government through the Local Government Ministry. At any rate, local democratic organs could be seen as extensions of the wider governmental body, in local communities. Therefore, there is nothing sinister about the relationship between municipal officers and the government.
Second, in this very column His Worship states: “In an attempt to improve our contact with citizens and to monitor works allegedly being carried out council agreed to appoint area wardens. They were identified, trained and started to make an impact but also exposed flaws in certain departments. The Administration systematically disbanded this Corps without authority.” The truth is that there is no record of any exposure of any flaw in any department by wardens. In fact, we would say that in some cases, the warden corps duplicated the work of critical departments, such as the Engineer, Public Health and City Police departments without the requisite authority. Naturally, this placed an additional financial burden on the council. However, the warden corps dissipated through attrition. Those who remained in the system were given jobs in different departments. Notwithstanding that, the administration is seeking to develop strategies embedded in more comprehensive interventions including more community participation in the decision-making process of the council.
Third, on the employment of the Public Relations Officer by the state we do not wish to comment except to say that the Public Relations Officer was on his vacation leave; he was on his own time. Therefore, he could have been employed by anyone without any prejudice to the generality of the work of the municipality.
However, what we are concerned about is the statement that deals with the IDB funded Solid Waste Project. According to the statement: “It is this officer who refused to cooperate with an IDB funded
