Dear Editor,
The recent hubbub that has surfaced about the contentious leasing of a Sussex Street Wharf by the ‘King of the City’ to a shipping company whilst the municipality is not the bona fide owner of that property, speaks to the exploitation, duplicity and bullyism that occurs on a daily basis at City Hall, and is the mere tip of the iceberg of many such improprieties that exist within that institution.
Remember the parking meter fiasco when the King handed over streets in the city that did not belong to the municipality but rather to the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, to the parking meter company, had parking meter spaces marked out, meters planted and fees illegally collected from motorists until that scandalous initiative was halted? Remember they had parking spaces marked out less than fifteen feet from the corner and in other places where the traffic laws did not permit?
But this waterfront area is not the only one that should be investigated. Checks should be made on the area aback of the City Constabulary Training School (formerly the House Service Department) on Water Street, that the City Council did not officially approve being farmed out to anyone, and the wharf that upper Robb Street runs into.
The reserve lands that run alongside the Lamaha Canal behind the residences located on Jacaranda and Lama Avenues in Bel Air Park, which belong to the Guyana Water Inc and not the municipality, is another classic example of illegal squatting facilitated by the Council who did not only give them permission to carry back their rear fences all the way to the canal taking in acres of land and making it part of their private estates, but allowed them to put up buildings, put down swimming pools, tennis courts and other structures illegally. What a travesty!
One can only hope that with these revelations of land grabbing, of illegal seizure and distribution, and misrepresentation of true ownership and control, would cause an investigation to be launched into the tract of land that runs contiguous to Aubrey Barker Road and some places to the south of Nelson Mandela Road which is a designated open space but which has been farmed out by the Council, unlawfully in many instances, to friends and relatives of office holders of the Council.
Attention should also be paid to the plot of reserve land located on the south eastern side of Francois and Sheriff Streets, for which the owner of a party services company is being courted by a prominent member of the Council for the illegitimate transfer of same.
As the saying goes, ‘If oil ah float, watah deh ah bottom’.
Yours faithfully,
Shanta Singh
