It would be a good thing if the removal of Mr. Royston King from the office of Town Clerk redounds to the improved effectiveness of the Georgetown municipality even though the benefit of experience does not afford us the luxury of unbridled optimism. That said, the remark attributed to LGC Chairman Mortimer Mingo about Mr. King’s absence of defence in response to the January 12th disciplinary hearing coupled with the Kennard Commission of Inquiry’s robust criticism of aspects of his conduct as Town Clerk points, hopefully, in the direction of some measure of meaningful change at City Hall.
From City Hall’s perspective what may be of greater significance than King’s dismissal is the disclosure by the LGE that the Auditor General has been invited to conduct a forensic audit of the Council’s finances and that the Commissioner of Police has been contacted about proceeding with criminal investigations. Those disclosures cannot be divorced from Justice Kennard’s assertion that the embattled King was, in the course of his tenure as Town Clerk guilty of gross misconduct, abuse of office, recklessness and conspiracy among other indiscretions and wrongdoings.
Frankly, long before the Kennard Commission of Inquiry had had its say Mr. King’s regime had lost any semblance of credibility, deluged as it had become with charges of incompetence and mismanagement and a slew of corruption-related allegations. That does not mean, of course, that irregularities at City Hall were invented by the King administration. Long prior to his appointment things, as far as efficiency and transparency are concerned had seemingly ‘gone south,’ allegations of fraudulent transactions involving millions of dollars having emerged out of the 2009 Burrowes Commission of Inquiry. But then there was little in the way of response to the recommendations of the Burrowes Commission of Inquiry never mind the fact that criminal investigations had reportedly been initiated by the Guyana Police Force.
Upon assuming the office of Town Clerk, King, the municipality’s one-time Public Relations Officer had embarked on a glitzy but ultimately largely unconvincing attempt at shoring up the image of City Hall, undertaking, among other things, to improve the municipality’s management structure, reorganize and retool the departments, and to deliver an administration that provided far greater accountability and transparency than did its predecessor. There were promises too to upgrade conditions at the capital’s municipal markets and, significantly, in the context of what obtains at this time, to provide a safe, clean and environmentally friendly environment for the citizens of Georgetown. It transpires that none of these commitments have been fulfilled.
Nor was King ever able to staunch unceasing allegations of both appalling incompetence and rampant criticism at City Hall. Instead, he came to be perceived as part of the problem rather than part of the solution insofar as questionable transactions inside City Hall were concerned.
In essence, the passage of a verdict on Mr. King’s tenure, not least his failed promise to deliver a more efficient, more accountable administration occurred long before the emergence of the findings of the Kennard Commission Report. What the Report did was to compel the LGC to move in the direction of removing King hopefully, in the direction of more comprehensive change.
What would have impacted most on King’s image and ultimately on his tenure as Town Clerk would have been allegations of his personal involvement in ‘arrangements’ like the leasing of the riverfront property under the control of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd. (NICIL) to a shipping company. It was almost certainly Justice Kennard’s scathing and unambiguous criticism of King’s alleged personal involvement in that matter, not least his blunt assertion that “the Town Clerk has no authority to issue leases” which, as much as anything else, put his position under threat. The LGC could not afford to sidestep such a blunt and direct criticism.
What Justice Kennard did in essence was to present King in a light that was sufficiently unfavourable such as to make it difficult for the LGC to fail to see the now dismissed Town Clerk as very much a part of the problem. So that if he did not, directly, that is, urge that King be removed from his position he certainly prodded the LGC strongly in that direction by raising compelling questions about both his leadership credentials and his personal integrity.
