Dear Editor,
The situation at the Mayor and City Council, has further deteriorated and the duly elected Mayor and Councillors of Georgetown despite what the public rightly expects, are in no position to assist or intervene in any municipal matter affecting the city. Ms Carol Sooba―the individual imposed on the council as acting Town Clerk by the government has with the apparent support of the PPP administration eroded completely the authority and responsibility of the duly elected council.
After the last statutory meeting, it is clear that Ms Sooba has assumed imperial-like powers. She has effectively reduced the duly elected council to an irrelevant institution. This is exacerbated by her total disdain and disrespect for councillors when unprovoked she shouts, and hurls invective and snide remarks at councillors at statutory meetings. Her unnecessary and annoying interruptions of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and councillors have now become a total absurdity and are unprecedented in the history of the Georgetown City Council.
Worryingly, an examination of decisions taken by the council since the incumbency of Ms Sooba shows that 90% of those decisions arrived at after due consideration and deliberation by councillors are completely ignored by Ms Sooba, and her favourite two words, “not implementable” are often written in the Action Taken column in the Statutory Agendas, to cover her crassness and incompetence.
By way of example, for months the council requested that we advertise for tenders for the collection and removal of garbage from certain areas of Georgetown. After almost an hour of probing and receiving facile and irrelevant answers from Ms Sooba, it turned out that she had flouted that decision and did not advertise in order to give the council an opportunity to weigh the pros and cons and the financial implications of our responsibility to manage the city’s solid waste.
Some other matters are engaging the attention of the courts and it would be inappropriate for us to make reference to them in this letter of appeal to civil society, except to say that nowhere else in a modern democracy is a public official allowed to display this type of unbelievable and unacceptable behaviour apparently unfettered and unrestrained. Ms Sooba’s actions and statements have been so ridiculous and unbelievable that at the last statutory meeting it earned the displeasure of at least one PPP/C Councillor.
On Monday, in the public gallery there was an overseas-based Guyanese and former employee of the Mayor and City Council who expressed horror at the exchanges, invective and interruptions of the meeting by Ms Sooba.
In earlier public statements, Ms Gail Teixeira, the WPO and others sought to defend Ms Sooba and introduced the matter of race and gender. Neither could remotely be relevant to the strange behaviour of a fractious public official.
Finally, in an effort to reverse the situation all Guyanese should call upon the government, as we now do in this appeal, to operationalize immediately and without further delay, the Local Government Service Commission to put an end to this strange situation where an unqualified and untrained individual was imposed on the largest municipality in Guyana.
This can be done without delay and there can be no excuse for not operationalizing this Service Commission. Its absence is a breach of our constitution and the meaning of democracy.
Also, government must stop it vacillation and set in motion the processes for local government elections; those elections have not been held since 1994.
Georgetown is the capital of the republic and the awkward events and disconnection from the norms are affecting citizens at every level. It is therefore necessary for us to begin a process to analyze the negative events unfolding in our city and to chart the way forward for this beloved capital of ours.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green
Mayor of Georgetown
