Understanding the significance of the work of the Commission of Enquiry requires, first, an understanding of the magnitude of the importance of the Georgetown City Council itself. Its role, described in the Municipal and Districts Act (Chapter 28:01) of the Laws of Guyana embraces a clutch of responsibilities that range from the maintenance of physical and aesthetic good order to considerations of public health. In short, if the Georgetown City Council fails the capital slips into crisis.
Keith Burrowes’ assessment of the significance of the Commission of Enquiry’s undertaking begins with his own acute understanding of the role of the municipality as the ‘keeper’ of Georgetown. It is, he believes, too critical to fail.
Setting aside the logistical challenges that confronted Burrowes’ assignment it appeared likely at the outset that the Commission might also face political hurdles from what was widely believed to be the likelihood of a hostile and uncooperative Council led by a Mayor who is, unquestionably, one of Guyana’s most experienced political operators. To its credit, it took the Commission little time to win over a Council, an accomplishment which, Burrowes says, had much to do with the Council’s own recognition of the sheer magnitude of its crisis. “They too are keen to have the problems solved,” he says.
If Burrowes and his team undertook with no illusions about the enormity of the challenge, Burrowes concedes that “the situation was much worse than I had thought.” The mid-2008 recommendation that a Commission of Enquiry into the operations of the Georgetown City Council be launched was triggered specifically by issues raised in the 2008 Auditor General’s Report regarding apparent transgression of procedures regarding regulation of staff loans and advances and staff loans, irregularities in rate collection municipal accounts in commercial banks. The Commission found these transgressions and more; it found evidence of fraud.
Beyond the issues that had been raised in the Auditor General’s Report and the specific requirement that it pronounced on the culpability, if any, of the Town Clerk and the City Treasurer in those particular areas of enquiry, the Commission, in the execution of its mandate, conceived a far more ambitious investigation into the overall operations of the City Council, a pursuit that led it into a formidable labyrinth of concerns that have plagued the city for decades.
Getting to the heart of the operational near- seizure of the municipality, Burrowes says, required, first, the clearing away of the mist of a less than convivial internal environment that had long settled over City Hall. What the Commission of Enquiry found were deep differences between the elected Council and the appointed officials which, in themselves, had served to seriously undermine the day-to-day functioning of the municipality. Indeed, the report carefully documents numerous examples of blatant and serious financial and administrative irregularities which appeared to derive directly from the schisms between the Council and its appointed public servants and which he says helped to immerse the municipality in a quagmire of managerial and financial chaos. It was, Burrowes says, “a case of the blind leading the blind.”
If, however, there was evidence of departure from procedures resulting from a lack of familiarity with regulations, there was, too, evidence of a seemingly callous and uncaring indifference to regulations even in cases where a lack of familiarity with regulations could not reasonably be tenderedas an excuse for transgressions.
In sum, Burrowes narrows down the crisis in the municipality to:
The inability of the Council to have consensus in circumstances where the nature of the organization renders consensus absolutely necessary. This has led to their failure to deal specifically with the problems at hand since the system has become clouded by political issues.
Inability of the Council to do proper assessments to determine in an objective manner the investment that they were making. (Burrowes says that there was, in some cases, little if any evidence of the existence of factors that influenced decision-making. “In other words,” he says, “it sometimes appeared as though decisions were being pulled out of thin air)
Serious problem of management (“I myself was shocked at the magnitude of that particular problem. In many cases senior officials did not appear to have a good sense of those aspects of the operations of the Council that had a direct bearing on their particular responsibilities. )
What appears to have been most affected by these deficiencies was the financial management of the Council. Evidence of a lack of familiarity with basic accounting procedures, a seeming unfamiliarity with financial planning and management and an absence of creative application of resources to projects found by the Commission of Enquiry has, Burrowes says, led him to question the extent of the legitimacy of the Council’s ceaseless clamour for more funding. “What I found during the investigation is that the external factors that account for the inefficiencies of the Council amount to no more than 30 per cent. About 70 per cent of the factors that inhibit their inefficiency are due to issues over which they have control,” Burrowes says.
In support of his contention Burrowes cites the fact that the Council has apparently failed to recognize and exploit the revenue stream that can be accessed if the Council can move to regularize can regularize existing disparities in rate payments. “I am positive that a number of properties that ought to attract commercial rates are still attracting residential rates. I have recommended to the Council that they conduct an exercise to determine the extent of the discrepancy and to remedy it. If they go the courts they can get a listing of all of the businesses that were registered, perhaps, over the past two years. If they acquire that listing they can actually focus on regularizing the payment of the proper rates. The next step would be to do a property revaluation of the rates with the assistance of the valuation department of the Ministry of Finance. I am confident that these two separate exercises can result in at least thirty to 40 per cent increase in revenue stream. “
Despite what he concedes is the magnitude of the task Burrowes says that he is keen to at least kick-start the process of implementing the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry. “Frankly, I did not anticipate this level of effort and I undertook the exercise at great personal sacrifice. I believe therefore that it is in my own interest as much as the Council’s and the city’s that, at a minimum, the recommendations are implemented.’
He is, he says, grateful for the support of the Mayor and City Council. “I believe that everyone recognizes the importance of an undertaking which has as its objective the enhancement of the capacity of the Mayor and City Council to improve the quality of its service to the capital. I say so unreservedly and here I include the Mayor and the Councilors. In fact, I believe that it is a tribute to the cooperation that I have received 10 per cent of the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry have already been implemented
