The Georgetown City Council should take responsibility for mistakes

Dear Editor,
Is it not yet time for the policymakers and administrators at the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown (M&CC) to own up to their mistakes, and to take responsibility for the beleaguered state of our capital city rather than attempting to chastise and penalize everyone else?
Quite recently, a major revenue scam was uncovered, whereby it was discovered that a large number of vendors were issued fake receipts by revenue staff for vending fees and rents paid. One would have thought that the Police would have been called in; that a comprehensive audit of the market revenue system would have been undertaken; and that the Councillors and citizens would have been formally notified.
Of course none of this was done, because the M&CC do not conform to the norms of good governance, transparency and accountability. So everything was quietly swept under the carpet, and ironically, it was the vendors from Alexander Street who were harassed instead.
Then we had the bizarre discovery of a farmer who was accused of rearing and slaughtering pigs inside of Le Repentir Cemetery, at the southern section, for more than 15 years now. The slaughtered pigs were then sold at the Bourda Market. Are pigs no longer slaughtered at the City’s abattoir? Now, certainly, the public health risk cannot be overemphasized, and the urgent need to remove this farmer cannot be overstated.
Instead, however, one elder Councillor opined that the Council had to consider the livelihood of the farmer, whilst a leading municipal official said she had compassion on farmers because she does not want to take bread out of the mouths of people. Unbelievable!
Clearly, these Councillors believe that it is more important to keep bread in the mouths of the farmer and her children than to prevent the citizenry from being exposed to all of the bacteria and pathogens that can be transmitted from the graveyard to buyers at the Bourda Market via the pigs (pork).
But do you think the farmer has since been removed? Of course not! Instead, she now has more than half a dozen sows and scores of piglets wallowing in, and drinking, the cemetery’s groundwater. Simply preposterous!
Another example of the twisted thinking of City Hall is their predisposition to not pay over NIS deductions to the National Insurance Scheme, and pay-as-you-earn taxes to the Guyana Revenue Authority, which are taken out of the employees’ salaries, and other deductions, such as credit union dues etc; and then, when questioned about it, turn around and say, ‘So what? It is not the Council alone that owes these entities’, as if to say that it is okay to break the law if others are doing same.
But who really is being penalized? Not the Council, but rather the poor employees, who cannot enjoy medical benefits or acquire loans from their Credit Union etc.
The Georgetown Municipality is very much out of control. It is very bloated, and is infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power.
Sincerely
Anu Bihari