A second demonstration against the city’s metered parking project saw a swell of support yesterday and although government, through consultation with the Mayor & City Council and Smart City Solutions, has committed to ensuring lower parking fees, protesters made clear that a reduction is not enough.
Many called instead for either a review of the contract for the system, while citing the lack of a tendering process and transparency on the part of the city council, or the outright removal of the entire system.
“This project went ahead without consultation of the people. As far as we can tell there is no feasibility study, there was no impact study, there was no tender process… A reduction in the parking fee does not change that so we are not prepared in this point in time to accept that as the end of it. We welcome the reduction but that’s not good enough,” Marcel Gaskin, a representative of the Movement Against Parking Meters stated yesterday.
Gaskin reiterated the group’s intention to press for legal action, noting that a private firm has already taken the onus to file action against the city to stop the implementation of the parking meter project.
The New Building Society (NBS), through its attorney Ashton Chase SC, has made several applications for an injunction against the project. According to attorney Nadia Sagar, the action seeks for the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to show cause why the by-laws should not be squashed, and an order nisi has been granted to stop the project in its current form. A hearing on the matter is set before Justice Brassington Reynolds on February 20th at the High Court.
Meanwhile, Gaskin said that protest action will continue indefinitely, with the next being scheduled for next Thursday. While he estimated yesterday’s crowd to be as large as 2,000, what was evident was that the crowd had mushroomed by at least a few hundred from the 500-person contingent that attended the protest last Friday.
Yesterday’s demonstration, unlike last Friday’s, was not marred by any counter-protest. Last week, workers attached to Smart City Solutions had formed their own picket line across from the anti-parking meter protestors and were joined by supporters of the parking meter project. This time around, the movement managed to carry out its plan of holding a silent protest. Neither the Mayor Patricia Chase-Green nor Town Clerk Royston King were seen during the hour-long demonstration held in front of City Hall at midday yesterday.
A number of protestors were willing to share their personal experiences of how the institution of the system has affected them daily. One businesswoman, based in East Street, spoke of her dread knowing that the project would soon extend its boundaries to where she resides. As a result, she said, she will be unable to park in front of her business for eight hours. Her acquaintance relayed that since the meters’ implementation, she has resorted to dropping her husband to work as paying to park would be too expensive.
Vendor Joylyn Glenn, who works for 12 hours each day, does not see the value of the parking meters in a country bearing Guyana’s economic status. She rebuked a call by a minister of government who stated that exemptions be granted to government and diplomatic vehicles, saying, “I don’t think so. Because if we are paying it and we’re the small ones then everybody should pay it. Or if not, we don’t have it at all.”
“…That is what our government call development? That is what Chase-Green call development for our country? I just can’t understand why these people don’t care for poor people, why these people don’t respect Guyanese and they just come in our country and do anything and the government of this country do not stand up for our people,” Vanessa Thompson, a vendor, stated.
Some, while unaffected, decided to join the protest as a show of patriotism and in a united front with their fellow Guyanese.
“The reason I’m out here is because there’s a bigger picture, and it’s that Guyanese people start coming together and taking a stand for what they believe,” Phillip Williams said. “This gathering today shows it doesn’t matter your ethnicity, it doesn’t matter your social status, we all have a common concern…it shows that Guyanese people are demanding transparency and due process so for another project, people won’t make the same mistake again, hopefully.”
“I am Guyanese and I will not see my people punish,” Chris Gopaul, who works at the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, and is popularly known for his work in theatre arts commented.
Gopaul noted that his place of employment has accommodations for parking, and while he does drive, he does not own a parking meter card because he would rather walk than put his money toward that. Like many others who spoke with this newspaper, Gopaul expressed his dissatisfaction with the manner by which the project was implemented and spoke also on the methods of enforcement being used.
“It is very unfair to bully somebody to pay $9,000 to get your car unlocked if you just spend a minute or two over… We’re Guyanese, they should have a grace period. Nobody walks with $9,000 in their pocket to give away on a daily basis, much less to pay $2,000 for parking for 8 hours every day on average. We don’t make that kind of money,” he said.
By-laws illegal
The nature of the implementation of the parking meters was foremost among the concerns expressed by citizens yesterday. Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan expressed surprise at the composition of the meeting held Wednesday evening between President David Granger, Chase-Green, King and other government officials, while noting that he believed a meeting of that nature should have been a forum for stakeholders.
A statement sent out by the Ministry of the Presidency noted that issues of the parking meter contract had “dominated Cabinet’s deliberations on Tuesday” and Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan said that Smart City Solutions was receptive and willing to consider making the tariffs attached to using parking meters less burdensome.
“What they are seeking to do now is what should have been done in the first place—meaningful consultation with stakeholders. Smart City Solutions had consultations—poorly attended—but City Hall had no consultations on this matter and City Hall represents the citizens. So, what we would like to see is a suspending of the contract, a scrapping of it basically,” Duncan said.
“There is no law. You don’t just sign a document and then that’s law, it’s a procedure. The council has the right to make their own by-laws but it has to follow certain procedures,” former Town Clerk Carol Sooba stated, while calling into question the legitimacy of the parking by-laws as they were not gazetted.
“…when you gazette, all who have objections they will file their objections and that has to be sorted out and it’s taken to Parliament. That didn’t happen….they are forcing it down the people’s throats…they have to go to court to knock the thing out, they can’t force it, that’s ‘bullyism,’” she added.
Protestor Stanley McIntosh opined that democracy was not being allowed to work, while stating that “that is not what we had local government [elections] for.”
“We gotta see democracy at work. We can’t say we practising democracy or we have democracy, and democracy right now is not working because you’re seeing the people out here and you’re seeing the powers at City Hall and nobody is talking to anybody. And democracy is sitting down and discussing, not blaming,” he added.
