Dear Editor,
The media footage given to the Town Clerk (acting); Treasurer (errant); Public Relations Officer (verbose, rightfully so); the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown (stressed out, as they should be) in that order, may appear to some to be a matter of amusement, to others consternation, and yet others symptomatic of a malodorous environment of governance, local and instant; none recognising the brew of intemperance respective acts and actions will concoct. The plots are ill conceived, spontaneous as some may be; the directives point to no certain direction, except perhaps from the point of view of a madcap director, resulting in the players (good or bad) all threatening a theatre of incomparably worse scenarios, particularly for themselves, individually and severally.
Examples: The first named is just an actor (or actress), no more, already overcome by the current role, a position which forbodes the possibility of being selected elsewhere, except as a stereotype (or stereogram)!
It is eminently clear that there is need for greater transparency and security in the council’s treasury. In fact, there is currently a published vacancy notice for an Internal Auditor. Applications are to be sent to “The Personnel Division, Mayor and City Councillor (Note: Just one. Applicants therefore have a choice!)
PR personnel are inherently actors preoccupied with words – too many of little meaning – leaving shortfalls in organisational implementation. But the applause must go to the befuddled council for their long and consistent record of grave underperformance. How much are they looking forward to ‘local’ government elections may be a mute question.
Meanwhile, the audience, admixing of those for, those against; those locked out private sectorians who do not listen to the mimicry inherent when speaking on their own behalf. Never is there a view or sound of the wider vision of the future; eg, including the rehabilitated Georgetown (with the help of the National Trust of course); and more importantly a strategic development plan that at least contains the construction of relevant architecture; which takes into urgent account the proliferating traffic congestion, and the absence of creatively designed parking spaces, to list a bare few.
Increasingly, there will be puzzlement at the reference to a ‘garden city’, and disingenuousness in the mention of a heritage of any visibility.
Indeed a strategic development plan is needed to guide the increasing proportion of foreign investors to their proper place in what remains of our indigenous urban history:
Umana Yana!
Yours faithfully,
E B John
