There are things about the findings of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) set up to probe the administration of City Hall that are acutely disturbing though, frankly, not altogether surprising. Perhaps the most telling of these is the conclusion reached by the Commission that the (former) Mayor and the on-leave Town Clerk, the two functionaries at City Hall enjoying the highest profile and bearing the weightiest responsibility for the image of the municipality “are not working in the best interest of the city.” That, of course, could mean any number of things though it is best, at this stage, not to push the issue too far into the realm of speculation.
Arguably, one of the more compelling virtues of the report is its brutal frankness. What Justice Kennard seeks most, it seems, is to ensure that those responsible for taking action on its findings are under no illusions about his findings regarding the mess at City Hall.
That the COI has concluded that “most of the woes of the city are due to mismanagement by officers of the Council” is its least surprising finding. Informed assessments of City Hall has, for years, tagged the institution for that particular weakness which, one might add ranges from downright incompetence at the one extreme and illegalities of one sort or another, at the other.
There is a bluntness with which Commissioner Kennard pronounces on what he concludes to be the role of Town Clerk Royston King in the goings on at City Hall, not least in the matter pertaining to the plot of land owned by NICIL in which he says the conduct of the Town Clerk “could amount to criminal action.” What the COI has done is to challenge the authorities to, at the very least, remove Mr. King as Town Clerk with immediate effect or to have serious questions raised about the purpose of the COI in the first place.
Arguably even more devastating is the COI’s dismissal of a host of key City Hall functionaries including the substantive Deputy Town Clerk, the Acting Deputy Town Clerk, the Internal Auditor and the Head of the municipal constabulary as being, variously, incompetent and irresponsible. Here again, Justice Kennard is offering telling glimpses into the quality of the leadership serving the Georgetown municipality and almost pointing to part of the reason why the institution has long been operating under a cloud.
Just a few weeks ago, as the political parties shifted their attention to the Local Government Elections which, in effect, simply reinforces the old order, even the Kennard probe had to take a back seat. Now that the elections are over and done with the report of the COI is an in-your-face urging that we abandon the old political order that has called the shots at City Hall for years, its outcomes pleading the case for radical reform of the Council’s entire management structure with a view to reducing the enormous political footprint that obtains in favour of a structure that embraces the virtues of professionalism, accountability and integrity. It is either that, it seems, or else, allow our capital to sink deeper into a quagmire of squalor and chaos as a prelude to the anticipated advent of ‘first oil’ and the hoped-for start of an era of social and economic transformation in 2020.
It would make little sense in setting a deadline for fixing all that is wrong at City Hall including, crucially, putting in place a competent and qualified municipal civil service with a sense of what it will take to, over time, restore a sense of order in the capital, as indirectly recommended by the COI. In pursuit of what Justice Kennard and his COI clearly see as an undertaking equivalent to the cleansing of the proverbial Augean Stables, City Hall will have to confront several key challenges. There is the substantive and by no means easy challenge of decoupling City Hall from its embedded party political moorings, at least sufficiently so to allow it to fulfill its substantive obligations to the country’s capital. It is either that or we allow our capital to remain a prisoner of our politics.
But it is not just the dead hand of politics that is crippling the management of the capital. There are, as well, the twin demons of incompetence and corruption. Over time, the stench of these has infected many of the key departments in City Hall so that the contemporary manifestations include flagrant and absurd violations of building codes that have visited upon some aspects of our capital a certain unbearable ugliness and released what is now an uncontrollable virus of blatant extortion of market vendors in exchange for minor prerogatives that transgress the law in what, sometimes, are small but often irritating ways.
Nothing, these days, more graphically illustrates the overwhelming ineptitude of the management of City Hall than what is now its unquestionable inability to administer the disposal of urban solid waste. Sustained shortfalls in revenue collection arising out of the municipality’s inability to garner revenue from its traditional sources and the misallocation of funds, now means that we are unable to meet the capital’s solid waste disposal bills. So that we are reduced to drifting in and out of crises manifested in the buildup of many millions of dollars in payment arrears, withdrawal of services to the Council and City Hall’s untidy recruitment of inadequately equipped replacements and the inevitable messy fallout from a qualitatively reduced service. The most recent falling out between the municipality and its two substantive garbage disposal contractors has arisen out of City Hall being adrift in its payments to the tune of $160 million, surely a Kafkaesque situation in a circumstance such as ours.
The least that is required at this stage is an enhanced level of professionalism at City Hall to the extent that it enhances its ability to deliver those essential services.
The Kennard COI report has said much that had already been in the public domain and which, one suspects, was already known not only to the incumbent political administration but to the previous one as well. If our capital is to break free from the ugliness and squalor into which it had sunk over time, the report of the COI would appear to offer us the latest in a number of ‘push starts’ that we have had in recent years. It is either that we find a way of supplanting lawlessness and ineptitude with professionalism and commitment in the management of the capital’s affairs or else watch it further deteriorate. What Justice Kennard has said with an unmistakable absence of ambiguity is that the incumbent management of City Hall and its existing unwholesome modus operandi have to be shown the door with maximum alacrity.