Dear Editor,
Now trending on social media is a press conference held by the Mayor of Georgetown, Mr. Ubraj Narine and councillors, (six councillors from a statutory complement of thirty attended that conference) today, Tuesday, August 3, 2021. It was a public “dressing- down” of the recently appointed acting Town Clerk, Ms. Candace Nelson. Apart from the fact that the conference was very comical, it was very sad to see the mayor and councillors continue to ruthlessly attack the young woman’s
character in public by calling her out of her name and claiming that she is incompetent and unqualified. According to the reports in the media, this is the same officer, Ms. Nelson, who the council recommended for that very position in 2020. And this is the same person who the previous Local Government Commission appointed to act as Deputy Town Clerk in 2019. However, on the question of her qualifications and competencies, it would be interesting to see the qualifications of those, who are seeking to publicly disqualify and hound her out of office. The city is already witnessing the effects of their competency or lack of it. What is unfortunate about all of this is that it appears as though Ms. Nelson’s only crime is that she accepted an appointment from the Local Government Commission to serve the city, in the position of town clerk. I can only imagine some of the things that are going through the minds of other young Guyanese professionals, and what they might be thinking about accepting positions to serve form our national leadership.
But, there is something else, the Mayor and many of his councillors represent a political party that complains bitterly about their collective perception of the way the government is treating public servants. Yet, the Mayor has been having public spats with certain officers of the council to the point where earlier this year, he publicly announced, and subsequently, the council unlawfully attempted to fire the current chief city engineer. While all of this infighting is raging between the Mayor, some councillors and officers, garbage is allowed to fester in the main business district, and in many communities, posing a risk to the health of citizens. Garbage collection as well as other public health services are infrequent and inadequate. In fact, one can easily get the impression that on the priority scale of the council, public health and good community governance do not carry any weight of importance. Finally, at that press conference, the Mayor said two things that are completely absurd: First, that the former town clerk has to hand over to the Mayor before he, the mayor, hands over to the new town clerk. The only question that needs to be asked, here, is since when? There is no provision, in any law, in this country, for any Mayor (Georgetown or other municipalities and/or towns) to do hand-over/take-over. The Mayor has no such authority, in law or in municipal policy. It is absolutely ludicrous. How can the Mayor be responsible for handover when he is transient? The Mayor is not part of the formal administration of the council. Even if he were he could not be responsible for handovers of offices at the council because he does not hold those offices and therefore cannot take or hand them over. There are heads of departments, who are officially and statutorily responsible for that and other related processes.
Second, the Mayor said words to the effect that the council had no problem with the former acting town clerk, Ms. Sherry Jerrick. But it is the very council that, through an inadequate recruitment process, attempted to appoint a group of hand-picked individuals, to different positions, including the position of town clerk, last year. The basic question is, if, indeed, the council had no problems with the former town clerk, Ms. Jerrick then why did they (the Mayor and councillors) disqualify her during the interview process from the position of town clerk as well as from the post of deputy town clerk? They never sent her name by way of any recommendation to the Local Government Commission. These facts are in the media and in the archives of the council. The other important question that must be asked of the Mayor is a political one. Are the Mayor and some councillors using Ms. Jerrick’s demotion as a rallying point for political action against the government? In my view, I think they are. If one considers the actions of the council in this matter then one will realise that, the council does not really care about either of the officers; they are concerned with their own interests. Why the fight to hold on to an officer (who the council deliberately refuse to recommend for the position, when it had an opportunity to do so) when in reality the office corps and all departments must work as a team to deliver services to citizens? Why pit the two officers against each other when they are part of the same structure and are expected to be working towards the same objectives of the organization regardless of positions? The answer to those questions is found in one word – “interest”. Personal and political interest weight more on the priority scale of the council than the wellbeing of the environment and the public health of citizens. Time for a change!
Sincerely,
Anthony Subner