By Jeff Trotman
The February statutory meeting of the Linden Interim Management Committee (IMC) came to an abrupt end on Wednesday when IMC members engaged in a squabble over the validity of a contract that was signed by the Chairman of the Social Development Committee, Winston Caesar and the promoter, VYBZ Entertainment.
Uncertainty surrounding the smooth planning of Linden Town Week 2015 arose in January at the first monthly statutory meeting for this year when the IMC Chairman, Orrin Gordon, called for an update on plans being made for Town Week 2015 and asked the Chairman of the Social Development Committee, Winston Caesar, for a report.
Caesar informed the IMC Chairman and the Council that an advertisement had been placed in the media for interested entities to bid for the franchise to run Town Week 2015 but he had only received one proposal, which he would accept because of the limited lead time available to plan and promote the one-week event.
The Chairman then asked to see the proposal and Caesar refused the request. Gordon insisted that as Chairman of the IMC, he had the right to see the proposal because it had become a document of the Linden IMC. He added that the request was being made at a monthly statutory meeting of the Linden Town Council, and even the other councillors at the meeting had a right to view the document. However, APNU councillor, Charles Sampson, informed the meeting that it was not necessary at that time for the Chairman of the Social Development Committee to expose the document to the council. The IMC Chairman then suggested that the eight councillors on the Social Development Committee should sign a petition, endorsing the proposal, when the committee met in February. This was done.
However, when the Linden Town Week 2015 came up as the first topic of discussion on the agenda of the February, 2015 statutory meeting on Wednesday, with a request for councillors who were not on the Social Development Committee to sign the petition, APNU Councillor, Claudette Haynes, the first person to speak on the matter, said that she would not sign the petition because she did not agree with four clauses in the proposal and she wanted them clarified and changed.
The Linden IMC Councillors were seeing the proposal for the first time around 2.35 PM on Wednesday although the contract, giving VYBZ Entertainment the exclusive right to plan and effectively execute the Linden Town Week activities for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 at a franchise fee of $1M with an increased sum in 2016 and a further 25% increase on the fee in 2017, was signed on the 6th of February by the Chairman of the Social Development Committee. The contract also stipulates that all business of Town Week would be done by the Secretariat of the franchise holder.
Following Haynes’ expression of disapproval, Gordon asked whether any other councillor wanted to comment on the matter and PPP/C councillor, Eon Halls, said that he had already indicated to the secretary of the Town Week Committee that he was “not signing a blank cheque”, meaning that he was not signing any proposal without being given the opportunity to properly peruse it.
Gordon also interjected that members of the Linden IMC constantly accuse the government of being corrupt and, now, they were thinking of approving a corrupt document.
The IMC Chairman also suggested that the town council should have had a qualified legal mind to look at the document to ensure that it was in order before the Chairman of the Social Development Committee signed the contract with the promoters. Gordon also said the Council had never previously signed any contract for any entity to run the Linden Town Week for more than a year. He reminded the council that Kashif and Shanghai had made a five-year proposal, which had been rejected. It was also indicated that another loophole in the contract was that, it was intended that the franchise fee be increased by fifty per cent in the second year but twenty-five percent was actually written on the contract. Seemingly emboldened by the IMC Chairman’s comment, Halls then said “the PNC is corrupt” and he would not be a part of the town week arrangement with PNC councillors. The majority of members on the Linden IMC are PNCR – APNU representatives. They said that they would no longer participate in a meeting in which they were being insulted and they walked out.
Meanwhile, the launch of Linden Town Week 2015, originally scheduled for the 18th of February at the National Library, Republic Avenue, was postponed to yesterday.
