Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green on Monday urged senior officers to ensure that the policy making and administrative arm of the City Council work as a team while seeking their cooperation to aid in the restoration of the city.
He issued the call at a meeting that saw the participation of acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba and several of the city’s councillors.
The meeting was called, according to those present, to brief staff on the expectations of the public under the new central government and to solicit the cooperation of City Hall’s department heads in the efforts to restore Georgetown.
Green addressed seven issues with the staff and requested of all department heads bi-weekly work plans, which are to include lists of all impediments (both human and material) to the effective completion of their duties.
He called for the officers to recognise the significance and importance of the recent change in government as well as to be conscious that they have a duty to the public. Workers were further encouraged to be disciplined, since acts of indiscipline and corruption will not be tolerated. “Standard operating procedures in all work must be followed,” he said.
While encouraging those present to ensure that the policy making and administrative arm of the council work as a team, Green also stressed that there must be a clear distinction between administrators and policy makers. In this vein, he said no councillor should be giving instructions to any officer. Instruction for officers must come from the council through the chairperson of the council, who is the Mayor.
Further officers are to follow the directives of the council, remembering that their job is to implement policy not make it.
Sooba, who has been at loggerheads with the Mayor and councillors since her appointment by the former Minister of Local Government, said afterward that she was “happy that the Mayor has taken this challenge and is now willing with his councillors under this new dispensation to develop the council.”
She also revealed that her office will be making a request for “a printer and computers” as it is currently without those pieces of equipment.
Further, she will be requesting the construction of a new administrative building to facilitate the function of the administrative section of the council. “We need a new administrative building. This one is crumbling around us,” she said.
Mayor Green also noted his determination to see City Hall restored to its former glory. He has said that a “team is being put together to advance restoration efforts.”
The City Hall building has been deemed a fire hazard by the Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle.
