-councillors in heated clash over letter
The Mayor and City Council’s budget for 2024 is now set for presentation on Monday, June 3rd.
The announcement was made following an exchange between councillors Lelon Saul of APNU and Alfonso De Armas-Archbold of the PPP/C at Tuesday’s statutory meeting.
Saul addressed a letter written by De Armas-Archbold in the May 26 Sunday Stabroek headlined `The Mayor and City Council is still to present and approve a budget for fiscal year 2024.’ Saul said he was “taken aback and shocked beyond measure”. He charged that the letter was written to mislead the public “by now we should understand the role of councillors and administration. This council would have sat and decided on the budget and we would have given instructions on a way forward how it should be done. The council does not sit down and write the budget it is for the administration to prepare the budget, we give instructions and they understand that”. He said the council is aware of the challenges in the administration. He said that saying otherwise or to give an impression that the council is incompetent is an offence to him since he is the chairman of the council’s Finance Committee.
“My name means a lot to me and not to be associated with incompetence”, he said, lamenting that the administration faces challenges that they have to fix. He asked that councillors be sincere in that regard. “I want this budget to pass”, he said, and asked that councillors “not play politics”.
Taking note of this, De Armas-Archbold asked to be given a chance to respond to which Mayor Alfred Mentore agreed. De Armas-Archbold challenged the council to go through the minutes of the statutory meeting where the budget was discussed. “I expressed a serious concern that we are half way in the fiscal year 2024 and despite being half way through the fiscal year we have no budget to guide and a budget as you know is not just a piece of paper but it contains vision and strategy for our city to move forward, the fact that the budget has not been presented as yet is a serious concern”, he said.
Mentore, an APNU councillor, then interjected and questioned “is that not all of our concerns as councillors?” He continued “what you set out to do is to blame all councillors. You are a part of the council.”
Mentore stated that the council knows the challenges the administration and the treasurer’s department face due to the changes and persons retiring among a host of other issues. Speaking on the draft budget, Mentore told De Armas-Archbold that he called on everyone to participate in the process and reminded him that he was also a part of the process.
De Armas-Archbold in response said he wanted to be clear about a few things.
“I challenge any councillor in here to pick an issue or to say that anything that I have written in that letter is factually incorrect”. He said he appreciated that Saul brought up the letter. “I would challenge him to point to a single thing in that letter factually incorrect. Thankfully minutes were taken and my position is clear”.
De Armas-Archbold said he is a very unhappy and frustrated member of the council but he is a member and that the council ought to have had the estimates submitted by November 15 2023 which the council is in breach of.
Mentore stated that De Armas-Archbold knows that the council’s treasurer retired in October-November and a new one was appointed.
“When we eventually had a new treasurer was around November what do you expect the person to do Houdini to be able to produce a document in a month”? He asked that De Armas-Archbold be compassionate and considerate given those circumstances and work with the administration so that they can deliver.
After all the back and forth between the councillor and the mayor it was finally decided that June 3 is the date for the budget.
