Dear Editor,
It is good that a patriot and highly qualified consultant has taken up the issue related to a recent letter written to the media by Mr. Royston King, purporting to be the Public Relations Officer of the Mayor and City Council, since I deemed it prudent to ignore this absurdity.
Characteristic of his mentors, King seems more concerned with the trees than the forest, and failed to address the central issues contained in the full-page advertisements published in the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News. I have no doubt that he will launch his typical tedious verbal assault on Mr. Earl John with all kinds of unworthy shibboleths, avoiding again the central issue of the correctness of a paid official writing to the media about a political functionary as he did recently.
The burden of his argument is that the contents of the full page advertisement did not have the prior agreement of the Mayor and City Council or a statutory meeting.
It will take volumes to record the number of things done that did not have the prior blessings of the Mayor and Councillors.
For example, he did not seek the fiat of the Mayor and Council for his long epistle, so is he suggesting he is part of a special privileged group?
According to demands of our regulations and protocol, Mr John is correct when he writes about Mr King proceeding on a training course and accepting a job elsewhere without prior approval and knowledge of the Mayor and City Council.
It is necessary to remind those who give cover to this unbecoming behaviour, that once you encourage a slide towards deviant behaviour or anarchy, it comes back to haunt you.
The public who pay his salary should know that the Public Relations Officer was absent on the following recent occasions.
1. The press conference held in the council’s chambers on 5th January 2007 to inform the media of our programme of works for World Cup and beyond.
2. The official handing over of a vehicle at the Ministry of Local Government on Wednesday, January 10 2007, where the honourable minister, the town clerk, the deputy mayor, the chief constable and the mayor were present.
3. A press conference held by Mr.. Christopher Fernandes and Mr Vic Insanally on Friday, January 12 2007 at John Fernandes office, to brief the media and citizens on the efforts being made to improve sections of the city identified for World Cup, at which the coordinator for World Cup was present, Mr Rufus Lewis, representatives from the banks and the commercial community. The mayor and other senior city council officials were present.
4. On Thursday, January 18, there was a media briefing hosted by the coordinator for the World Cup, Mr. Rufus Lewis at his office in South Road. Several cCouncillors and media personnel were present.
5. On Saturday morning,January 20, 2007, three government ministers, the mayor, deputy mayor, town clerk, city engineer, deputy city engineer, clerk of markets, deputy clerk of markets,director of solid waste among others visited the Stabroek market, the public relations officer was again not present and, as on other instances, neither an excuse nor an explanation was given. In fact, one minister was critical about the working of the public relations section and the officer in charge not being on hand that morning.
We can expect a long polemic from him on the above facts, but these are hard facts.
Some time ago, in a written memo a suggestion was put to him that before the end of each day, he should check with the mayor/town clerk office to ascertain if there are activities that require a public relations input the following day.
I repeat without fear of contradiction, the uselessness of this officer is apparent and he seems inclined to spend his time writing long letters to the media.
What a shame and waste of taxpayers’ money.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green, J P
