There was PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday assuring Georgetowners that the government had a plan to transform their city and would adhere to it. The residents, who after all gave the opposition a decided, if not overwhelming majority on Monday, must have wondered exactly what he meant by this. Prior to the election Mr Jagdeo had said that a vote for his party was a vote to ensure there would be development in the city, but after the experience of 23 years of PPP/C governments and now a further three years, the majority of citizens clearly remained sceptical.
At one rally he told his audience, “You are voting for a party that is about progress … a party with a track record of achievement, enormous credibility in fulfilling promises … we have to take this city from the APNU.” Once again he said that the opposition had nothing to offer the people of Georgetown, and that they only made promises on which they could not deliver. City dwellers had heard all this before, of course, and the majority had come to their own conclusions as to why the council could not deliver.
At Cummings Lodge Mr Jagdeo repeated an oft cited allegation about accountability at City Hall, and said it would have to “account for every cent.” This is to ignore the fact, of course, that the chief accounting officer for the M&CC is the Town Clerk, who is appointed by the Local Government Commission as are the City Treasurer and the City Engineer. It is the commission, not the council which holds the power not just to appoint these and some other officials, but also to dismiss and discipline them, and it has a pro-government majority. It might be added that Mayor Ubraj Narine has claimed that he has made requests for audits of the city’s finances to which the government has not responded.
Whatever the case where that is concerned it has to be said that the council hardly distinguished itself in the period when the coalition was in government. Its only claim to notice during that period was the infamous parking meter scandal in which then mayor, Patricia Chase-Green was involved. For the latest local government election she crossed party lines which helped neither the newcomer for whom she campaigned in her constituency, nor the PPP/C.
A more interesting undertaking given by the General Secretary was that his party would have all City Hall meetings live-streamed, so residents could monitor what was going on. No one could complain about a bit more openness, besides which, what goes on around the horseshoe table will probably be more entertaining for the viewer than the dreary, pro forma and increasingly infrequent parliamentary sessions.
At a Kitty rally Prime Minister Mark Phillips said, “It is disheartening that the council has refused to work with government … we need a leadership that is ready to work with us and ensure the benefits are passed to the citizens … Georgetown must benefit and not be used to play politics.” If anyone has played politics with Georgetown it is the ruling party by starving it of funds not to mention a variety of other stratagems. In addition, the problem has been less a question of the council refusing to work with the government, than the government refusing to work with the council.
Even when the council has come up with a plan to regenerate and develop an area as it did in the case of Stabroek in early 2020, the government studiously ignores it and does not respond. A project like that would have required central government funding and organisational assistance, but there are no circumstances where the administration would contemplate associating itself with an opposition M&CC so there could be joint credit for development. When the Prime Minister said government needed a council leadership which would work with it, therefore, what he meant was a PPP/C leadership.
So are we to assume that now the ruling party has not prevailed in the three largest municipalities, it will work with their councils? It would be a breakthrough if they were. The Vice President did say that the government had every intention of implementing its transformative plan for the city as well as every region, and that they proposed to move ahead wherever they could without obstructing local governance plans. “I know what the plans are because we have laid them out and we’re implementing them,” he was quoted as saying, although he acknowledged it would have been easier if they had control of the city or a council which was willing to work with the central government.
It may be that after years of smothering the opposition municipalities Freedom House has come to the conclusion that this has not worked and it has to change its tactics. After all, the largest of them still did not defect from their traditional party allegiance even although the opposition campaign was flaccid, and even although the ruling party held out the promise of certain development given its access to oil money.
So again, if it has decided to do something about Georgetown’s deteriorating state does that mean it will really work with the new council, or will it just swoop in over the head of City Hall and do what it has decided without reference to the councillors? Since it already has its ‘transformation plan’, the latter would seem to be a more likely scenario, in addition to which that has been its normal modus operandi when dealing with other local authorities – and with Georgetown’s drainage, it might be added. It is difficult to see it back-pedalling on its obsession with centralisation and total control at this stage.
Perhaps the real test is what it does in the case of Linden, which voted so overwhelmingly for the opposition, and where it lost its only constituency seat. Will it really inaugurate discussions about development with that council? New Amsterdam might be less of a challenge to its political self-esteem since it made serious inroads there.
We would be seeing the beginning of political progress in this country if the central government were open to genuinely working with, rather than dictating to or bypassing opposition councils. Apart from anything else it would be the first glimmer of inclusivity in action, and what can be done at the local level can potentially be extended to the national level where everything seems frozen. Citizens, not just in Georgetown, but elsewhere too are waiting to discover whether in a larger political sense the recent local government elections just spell more of the same, or if there is some hope, however small, for changes in approach.
