The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is to discuss the particulars of a city audit to be monitored by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) and carried out in conjunction with M&CC.
This was determined at the statutory meeting held at City Hall yesterday after the idea, proposed by Deputy Mayor Robert Williams was ventilated among councillors.
Williams in a detailed justification of such an exercise, said the audit should be done for there to be an understanding of the social and economic fabric of the city. He said the audit would be done in a number of sectors including the physical layout and infrastructure, which includes drainage; the economy; to determine where the city’s workforce comes from among other pertinent issues.
Roberts said that if one was to take a keen look it would be noticed that a large number of persons flock the bus parks in the evenings to return to out of town locations after a day’s work, while many young people in the city can be seen “liming” at corners with nothing to do. Part of the proposed audit would be to determine whether businesses should be taken to those areas where the large work force seems to be coming from, so that the jobs in the city would be available to city dwellers.
Williams raised the point too that since the 1970s the same canals have been serving the city that was then a little more than two square miles; its limits have now expanded to more than 15 square miles.
He pointed out that sluice doors were leaking and that many places that are now streets were once canals. Williams said it was little wonder then that the city floods at the slightest shower.
The Deputy Mayor said that with the advent of global warming, and its direct threat, the issue of drainage was a significant one that needed to be looked at now.
Chairman of the ERC, Bishop Juan Edghill, said his presence at the meeting yesterday was to verify that the council as a body had decided to undertake the venture. He said the idea was one that came up before.
Edghill said the ERC has the responsibility and mandate and was willing to monitor the audit, include and make representations to all necessary stakeholders.
Edghill said the University of Guyana has already been approached and plans are in the making to approach the Institute of Development Studies, headed by Professor Clive Thomas, for its input.
Mayor Hamilton Green said that although evidence in the past showed that those in authority had not been cooperative with this kind of venture; he hoped the Bishop would take the initiative and move a step further giving the people what they needed to hear.
Meanwhile, councillors said that while they were not against the idea, more time was needed to deliberate on the matter. As such meetings will be held to deal with the specifics and City Hall’s contributions to the audit. (Melissa Charles)
