Dear Editor,
I learnt through the local media recently that the Deputy Mayor of Georgetown Ms Patricia Chase-Green has signalled her intention to run for the position of Mayor at the upcoming municipal elections in 2016. I was stunned to say the very least.
I cannot imagine how someone from a group which has spent seven terms in municipal office rather than the one to which they were elected to serve ‒ twenty-one long years rather than three ‒ could even entertain the thought of hanging around City Hall for more time. This is simply outrageous. Do some people not know when to move on? Or have the decency to step aside to allow younger, brighter minds to take over? Why do some politicians believe that the political position they hold should be theirs for life?
I ask, what as a councillor has this lady done to improve the lives of the citizenry of Georgetown for the last 21 years, during which she has held several positions? What special qualifications or skills other than being a retired industrial nurse does she possess to lead Guyana’s capital for the next three years?
What will and can this lady do over the next three years that she did not and could not have done for the last 21 years? And I can predict what her answer will be. It will be the popular refrain and that is that her council was stifled by the previous government. This is poppycock. Any decent, self-respecting, proud and honest person who recognizes that they were being prevented from serving the citizens as they were elected to do, would have done the respectable thing and left rather than just hanging around for 21 years to merely enjoy the benefits.
Does she have a strategic plan of how to make Georgetown a modern city? How she will weed out corruption and nepotism at the council?
As Mayor will she continue to behave in the manner for which she is well known, engaging in loud, offensive verbal exchanges as she did with a previous Town Clerk? Or will she carry herself with deference and stateliness as the office of chief citizen requires? Does she have the aptitude and perspicacity to make such a sweeping transition?
Will she be able to command the respect of civil society, the business community, academia, the international community, the youths, the trade unions, her fellow councillors and the workers of the Georgetown municipality, all of whom are critical stakeholders to making Georgetown great again?
The Deputy Mayor has had her time and chance, and should give the young, bright, forward-thinking leaders of tomorrow a chance to prove themselves as worthy at this second tier of governance. As they say, it is time for change, not going back down the same old road that we did for the last 21 years.
Yours faithfully,
Mark Roopan
