Dear Editor,
I was gob smacked when I learnt via the press recently, of a motion purportedly moved by the Mayor of Georgetown and supported by a particular group of Councillors, for an officer formerly employed by the Georgetown Municipality, who was dishonourably discharged for several breaches in procurement, accounting and management at the City Council, to be paid what is described as outstanding sums within 72 hours. Mind you this is no petty cash being referred to, but rather a whopping thirty million dollars and is being demanded by the very Mayor who just a few weeks before, boldly announced that the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) owed the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) between $400 to $500 million in unremitted Pay As You Earn (PAYE) income tax deductions that the municipality took out of its employees’ salaries but failed to pay over to the revenue collection agency.
A clear violation of the laws of Guyana with which he seemed upset by court action which was threatened against them. Additionally, the very Mayor has over time been pointing to hundreds of millions that are owed to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) and the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), along with monies owed for pension, gratuities and other benefits to other employees, but which he seems in no hurry to remit. This is in the midst of the Georgetown Municipality failing to submit audited and qualified financials for decades and the Office of the Auditor General recently reporting that they were having quite a difficult time making sure public funds were properly spent including amounts totaling $374.545 million that were provided by the then Ministry of Communities.
To make matters worse, or as they say here in Guyana, ‘to add insult to injury’ the very officer for whom the Mayor is demanding this urgent payout and some of the very Councillors who are supporting it, were in large measure responsible for the dire circumstances that Guyana now finds itself, and that is, being confronted with a US one hundred million dollar lawsuit through a botched and controversial parking meter deal. And I mean One Hundred Million United States Dollars! It is just unimaginable that the Mayor, with Georgetown in its current sorry state and often described as ‘cash strapped’ would be in such a hurry, seeming to want to have it done before the life of this Council comes to an end, to have the payout of more than thirty million dollars made to a dismissed officer whose track record is well known to all and sundry. Can the citizens of Georgetown ever look forward to a better day in their Garden City?
Sincerely,
Anu Bihari