Dear Editor,
With the deepening financial woes of the Georgetown Municipality, it comes as no surprise that the City Council has ordered an audit probe into the operations of its Finance Department.
Even before the council acknowledged that all wasn’t well in its finance department, and sought the assistance of the Auditor General, there was a growing body of public opinion that the financial systems of the Georgetown City Council are seriously flawed and fundamentally unreliable.
One gets the distinct impression that many senior officers in the administrative and finance departments behave as though they are not accountable to the Mayor and Councillors who are the people’s representatives, elected to fashion and apply policies to improve the conditions of our capital city. A mere passing review of the news reports that have come out of the council for a number of years will point toward a plethora of irregularities and financial scams that came to the surface, but with nothing being done and no one being disciplined.
Many of these officers seek cover behind the political jostling and personality clashes that constantly consume the council. It is well known that the vast majority of the council’s decisions are ignored or obstructed by the defiance of the very senior municipal officers who apparently cannot be appropriately disciplined by the council as a consequence of some archaic law.
There is certainly no shortage of evidence of impropriety at the council, the more recent being the discovery that approximately a dozen senior officers from the council’s finance and administrative departments received without the knowledge of the Mayor and Councillors payment as a reward for not proceeding on their annual leave. This payout is not only unlawful, as it is in direct contravention of the rules of the council with regard to annual leave, but it is also an act of dishonesty and discrimination as other officers who are not a part of this cabal either suffered from the forfeiture of their leave or were forced to proceed on same.
Though identification of a problem is the first part of its solution, as is being attempted by inviting the Auditor General’s office, it is unmistakable that the current state of affairs at the council, which sees a total mismanagement of its finances and an absolute lack of accountability, cannot continue. I think the time has come for all citizens to agitate forcefully for a revolutionary change in the way their property rates are administered, and who are placed to manage them.
Yours faithfully,
Timothy Alfred
