Weeks after Mayor of Georgetown Patricia Chase-Green said City Hall will act on government advice on the controversial parking meter deal, a meeting has finally been set for the city council to discuss the matter.
A source told Stabroek News that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) would this Wednesday debate the findings of two central government reviews on the contentious parking system contract at a special meeting. The source said that councillors and officers received the notice of the meeting during the course of last week.
Earlier this month, Chase-Green had said that it is her administration’s intention to work towards fulfilling the recommendations of central government with regard to the controversial parking meter contract between the city and Smart City Solutions Inc (SCS). However, the meeting to discuss the matter did not happen.
At last Monday’s statutory meeting Chase-Green told councillors “when all the facts are with us (M&CC), we will hold that meeting.”
Central Government decided to review the parking meter deal inked between the M&CC and SCS after the project was subjected to withering criticism on several fronts including the secretive nature of the deal. Two reviews were done: one by the Attorney General’s Chambers and another by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
The AG’s review of the contract had concluded that the contract is of such “unequal bargaining strength” that it includes a clause intended to scare the M&CC at the prospect of terminating the agreement.
The report also noted that the fees and fines to the account of the concessionaire “seem to be so onerous on the city and thus the citizens that a caveat is provided that these figures could be reduced by agreement between the parties.”
In light of this fact, the AG noted that the parties can revisit the terms and conditions of the agreement, with the city employing an accountant to advise it on the numbers with a view to reaching a reasonable financial fees and fines regime along with the appropriate consideration that ought to be paid to the city.
This advice aligns with some of the findings of the separate MoF review of the contract, in which it described the deal in some areas as exploitive and labelled the city’s outlook on aspects of the deal as “ignorant.”
As a consequence the MoF advised the city to “re-assess the financing arrangement of the contract.”
Initially, a rate of $125 per 15-minute rotation had been proposed but after an outcry and central government’s reports, Managing Director of SCS Ifa Kamau Cush had told Stabroek News that parking under the metered regime will cost around $50 per 15 minutes or $200 per hour.
Cush had also said that City Hall would be receiving 20% of the revenues, with Central Government receiving 16%. He had said that when the company honours its social obligations by giving back, it would ultimately be giving back in excess of 50% of profits back to the city and country.
Meantime, the review done by the MoF found that the government procurement laws were violated “Government procurement practices may have been violated, in that a tender was not advertised and bids reviewed for acceptance based on certain criteria and as such justifies a revoking of the contract by Government and the re-tendering,” the review stated.
Prior to the findings in the MoF review, this newspaper had enquired from Chase-Green and Chairman of the City Finance Committee, Councillor Oscar Clarke why a tendering system was not used in the selection process. Both Chase-Green and Clarke had responded by saying that the city is not investing any capital and as such a tendering system was not required.
Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran had pointed out that there had been no open tender for the deal which is a violation of the city’s procurement rules.
